Author: Thefirstdefier; J. F. Brink
Date: 2024-02-27T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: Only the strong will survive when fate gathers. The war against the Kan'Tanu is drawing closer, and Zac can't wait any longer. Only by stepping into D-grade does he have a chance to keep Earth safe. Fusing life and death is thought impossible, but Zac has no choice but to achieve a miracle. And if there's one place where he might succeed, it's the Perennial Vastness. The mysterious realm holds unique opportunities and resources. A final opportunity to power up. However, the fifth pillar of the System is emerging, and an Eternal Heritage is up for grabs. The ancient factions are willing to go t

DEFIANCE OF THE FALL 12

©2024 JF BRINK/THEFIRSTDEFIER

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CONTENTS

ALSO IN SERIES

1. Null

2. A Dangerous Game

3. Nine by Eight

4. Home Base

5. Pure Land

6. A Bet on Oneself

7. Chickens and Monkeys

8. The Rulebook

9. Missions

10. That He May Grow Arrogant

11. Sinner’s Lament

12. Small Actions

13. Perennial Transformations

14. Blood and Thunder

15. Sinner Mounds

16. Resentment and Punishment

17. Keys of Ascension

18. Misgivings

19. Coming Home

20. Struggle Among the Heavens

21. The Calamity

22. Nomad

23. Joint Venture

24. Three Fates

25. Nine to Lead, One to Follow

26. Resonance

27. Reincarnations and Rebirths

28. Calamity Core

29. Calamity

30. Greed

31. Light of Azra

32. Final Gauntlet

33. A Favor Owed

34. The Quarry

35. A Mark on the Tapestry

36. Inversion

37. The Gift of the First People

38. Cosmic Forge

39. Being Remembered

40. A Rising Tide

41. Tears of Belsim

42. Ahead of Schedule

43. Cosmic Infusion

44. Transience

45. Lucky Beads

46. Recreating a Miracle

47. The Stand of Saeward

48. Hero Souls

49. Red Caps

50. Hunter and Prey

51. Candor

52. Edict

53. Sacrifice

54. Pressure

55. Plunge

56. Disappearing Act

57. Puppet

58. Imperfections and Tribulations

59. Fallout

60. Sendor

61. One by Nine

62. Partnership

63. Esmeralda

64. Loose Strings

65. Getting Stronger

66. Fantasy

67. Karmic Debt

68. Glorious Return

69. Drifting Snow

70. Union

71. Approaching the Limits

72. Back at the Scene

73. Like the Moth

74. All for One’s Dream

75. Karma Concluded

76. Fated

77. Nucleus

78. The Road Toward Hegemony

79. Uncertainty into Truth

80. Toll of Hegemony

81. An Axe Against the Heavens

82. The Path Forward

Thank you for reading Defiance of the Fall 12

ALSO IN SERIES

DEFIANCE OF THE FALL

BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

BOOK THREE

BOOK FOUR

BOOK FIVE

BOOK SIX

BOOK SEVEN

BOOK EIGHT

BOOK NINE

BOOK TEN

BOOK ELEVEN

BOOK TWELVE

BOOK THIRTEEN

Check out the series here! (tap or scan)

1

NULL

Zac’s excitement was mirrored in Ogras’ face as they held their Perennial Vastness Tokens. The ticket to Hegemony. Things were different this time compared to the hasty ascent into E-grade. His foundations were as stable as bedrock thanks to the Twilight Ascent and the Orom World, and he’d found the path forward in the Void Star and Ultom’s impartments. Finally, the Perennial Vastness would provide the stage needed for a perfect breakthrough.

A unique realm that attracted elites from all across the Multiverse was bound to have deep undercurrents, but Zac didn’t mind. In fact, he welcomed it. He’d spent the past five years in secluded cultivation, three of which were in an isolated Time Chamber. Conquering the Gates of Rebirth, cinching a Limited Title while upgrading his techniques and Daos, had only whetted his appetite for adventure.

There was nothing else to say, so Zac infused his energy into the token. A deep hum, like the shifting of tectonic plates filled Zac’s ears as a series of runes sprouted around him. A storm of Cosmic Energy gathered above, almost covering the whole compound. It raged and roiled, and only got worse when Ogras activated his token. Almost as though the sky were trying to eat itself.

Zac hadn’t expected such a scene from activating the token, and he shared a look with Ogras.

“See you on the other side,” the demon said before disappearing.

Zac said a final goodbye to Joanna, Vilari, and Emily, then rushed in the opposite direction before the token whisked him away. He stopped at the edge of his compound and nodded in satisfaction upon seeing that the storm had stabilized and split into two. It was just a precautionary measure to ensure there wasn’t any interference or issues with the teleportation.

The runes being conjured by the token grew more numerous by the second. They soon attached themselves to his body, forming a cocoon. Then, a slit in space appeared below him. It wasn’t some random spatial tear. It was lined with incredibly complex golden runes, far surpassing the patterns on any teleportation array he’d seen. Zac didn’t get the chance to make any sense of them before dropping inside, and he soon found himself launched through the Void of Space.

The experience was completely different from using the teleportation arrays. There was a palpable sense of speed even in the Void. Zac suspected he was traveling hundreds, if not thousands, of times faster than when he was teleported with the standard arrays provided by the System in the Zecia Sector.

It was a relief, though it left Zac confused. He’d expected the System to perform one of its instant teleportations to send him to the Perennial Vastness, like when he visited the Hunt or the Tower of Eternity. Instead, he shuttled at a speed beyond light for roughly thirty minutes until light bloomed in the endless darkness.

A magic circle?

Was it something the token had conjured for him? No, if it had, why wait for half an hour? Besides, it was simply huge, at least the size of a planet, and it radiated such incredibly dense spatial fluctuations that the Void was pushed back. Something like that couldn’t possibly be contained in his little token.

The runes on his body flickered, and Zac looked on with interest as a wheel turned in the middle of the circle. It almost looked like the gear on a bank vault, but the circle didn’t open like a door. Instead, a small vortex, not much larger than Zac’s cocoon, appeared in front of him, and he shot through.

Zac didn’t know exactly what just happened, but he believed it was one of those shortcuts Iz had mentioned. Looking back, he saw either the same or another magic circle shrink in the distance as he continued on his way. A similar scene happened twice more over the next two hours, until an identical golden ring lit up at his feet.

The next moment, the frantic movement was gone, and Zac found himself floating in endless darkness. It wasn’t the Void, but rather a proper dimension that didn’t try to rip him apart. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but the token he’d held onto lit up, and a simple screen appeared in front of him.

[Please Wait]

Zac waited for another ten minutes, when a vast presence descended upon him. It was like receiving the attention of the System or the Old Heavens, yet there wasn’t the cold indifference of the former or the wrath of the latter. Instead, it was a calm ocean, almost soothing and welcoming.

That consciousness spread through him, and he didn’t try to fight it. For one, he knew there was no way he could, even if he wanted. Not even Mossy could compare to this presence. Secondly, most of his secrets would be exposed when coming here one way or another. After all, he would potentially have to spend years forming his core, continuously swapping between his races.

What did it matter if his secrets were exposed now or later?

There was no other way. His chances of reaching Hegemony weren’t great, even with the Light of Ultom creating an amazing core blueprint. Actually building it was simply too complicated, and he was just a mortal. Even if he somehow succeeded in breaking through back home, he’d probably waste years in the process and end up with a Low-quality core at best.

By that point, the struggle inside Ultom might already have started, and he would have completely missed any chance at catching up with the elites who would enter.

The Perennial Vastness was his only shot at properly breaking through, forming a powerful enough foundation to burst forth to the Peak Middle D-grade. At that point, he believed he’d be able to deal with almost any frontier Hegemon, which would be an important lifeline for Earth.

So, he watched on, fighting his instincts as he let himself get scanned, including his Specialty Core. Leandra’s shrouding array was active, but the presence saw right through it. Leandra had said it would work against most Autarchs, proving just how powerful this presence was.

The scan didn’t linger too long on his Duplicity Core, though. It moved on after just a few seconds, leaving Zac with mixed emotions. Part of him just wanted to scream, ‘Take a good look at the core! Isn’t it amazing?’ now that someone could finally see it. It was so powerful it was almost a cheat, and Zac had almost expected the owner of the Perennial Vastness to appear in front of him.

Yet, the presence seemed to deem it not very interesting. It spent twice the time looking at the constellation of Soul Cores dancing around in his Soul Aperture. Ten seconds later, both tendril and presence were gone, leaving Zac alone in the emptiness of space. The screen telling him to please wait appeared once more until the darkness cracked.

“Welcome!” a bubbly voice said as the world was filled with color. “Welcome to the Perennial Vastness!”

“Uh, thanks,” Zac said as he looked around with confusion. “What’s going on?”

Zac didn’t know what he’d expected of the Perennial Vastness, but it wasn’t this. The name conjured images of endless plains or oceans stretching toward the horizons. Neither matched reality. Instead, Zac floated in the middle of a swarm of cosmic fireflies, thousands of them all around him. Everything was hazy, making it impossible to know whether the lights were the size of a person or if they were distant stars.

“Some things are being prepared for your arrival, so you will have to wait a bit,” the voice answered. “You can consider this the orientation.”

“Alright,” Zac said, hesitant. “And who are you?”

“Isn’t it polite to introduce yourself first?”

The voice was a bit childish and mischievous, making Zac think of Emily when she was still a teenager.

“I’m Zac,” Zac said, not bothering to come up with another pseudonym.

From what Zac had gathered, the compulsions that guarded the secrets of the Perennial Vastness were extremely thorough. The whole visit was subject to a confidentiality clause enforced by the System and empowered by whoever ran this place. Zac wouldn’t even be able to discuss things with Ogras afterward, apart from the cultivation aspects and his gains.

Not even the Undead Empire elites knew what was happening inside. Any attempts at breaking the restriction ended with the whole visit to the Perennial Vastness being wiped out—including your memories of your Core Formation and other gains. An A-grade Eidolon had tried to uncover the secrets without success, proving just how exquisite the seal was.

The Monarchs of the Undead Empire might have been holding back on him, but Zac doubted it. This place had been around for hundreds of millions of years, yet not a single piece of tangible information had spread. It was safe to say that most things happening here wouldn’t leave the trial. As such, he’d decided not to be overly secretive, especially considering he’d be forced to showcase his two forms.

Just as importantly, Zac was tired of running around taking on fake identities, hiding who he was while fearfully looking over his shoulder. That kind of behavior completely clashed with his path. In a sense, the Perennial Vastness was the perfect place to gauge the reactions from people all across the Multiverse as he showed more of his true self.

Of course, only an idiot would flaunt all their secrets for anyone to see, but there had to be a middle ground between paranoia and carelessness. While Zac wouldn’t share his full name, he could at least go by Zac. He’d also modified his appearance so that no one could easily connect his identity to Zachary Atwood of the Zecia Sector.

“Zac, huh? You’re kind of a weirdo, Zac of the frontier,” the voice giggled. “Then again, I shouldn’t complain. I wouldn’t have been born if you hadn’t been a weirdo. Hum, since you’re so weird, what should I call myself? Alright, you can call me Null.”

“Null,” Zac asked with confusion. “What does that have to do with me?”

“Look around you,” Null said. “See all those lights?”

“Of course.”

“Some of those are guests like you waiting to be sent down, others are visitors entering the Perennial Vastness for other reasons. The lights are guides such as myself. Normally, we’re sent to guide guests with matching affinities.”

“Oh,” Zac said with a wry smile upon realizing there was no light around him.

“Exactly,” Null laughed. “The boss had to specially create me since you’re a weirdo with no affinities. Don’t worry, though. I have been imparted with all the knowledge I need. I won’t be any worse than the others. Perhaps even better since I was handcrafted.”

“Can I ask who the boss is?” Zac asked.

“Huh? It’s the Perennial Vastness, of course.”

“I know, but who owns it?”

“No one. The Perennial Vastness is the Perennial Vastness.”

“The world itself is sapient?” Zac said with surprise.

“Something like that. It’s beyond me, but the lines get blurred at the top. Either case, it’s the Perennial Vastness that’s reached an agreement with the System, and it’s the one who sends tokens into the universe.”

“Can I ask why?”

“Isn’t it a bit late for that after already coming all this way?” Null snickered.

“Humor me,” Zac smiled, feeling no animosity from the odd guide.

“Simply put, your cultivation system is imperfect because the Dao is yet imperfect. But with every generation, the Heavens mend and evolve, and the paths of cultivation evolve with it. Furthermore, this recovery process can be sped up, and the boss is one of the System’s helpers. And you, in turn, are helping the boss with his task. In a sense.”

Zac exhaled, putting two and two together. If what Null said was true, it was no wonder no faction had claimed this place, even if it was a top-tier Immemorial Realm or a Primal Heaven—something that would attract even A-grade factions. Trying to snatch it was to steal from the System, and few were foolish enough to do something like that.

And even if they dared, did they have the strength to do so? The System alone was enough of a deterrent, but the World Core was most likely monstrously powerful on its own. If the World Core had evolved to the point it could freely control the energy of its realm like a cultivator, it could absolutely steamroll any cultivator.

“So, it was like that,” Zac muttered, feeling more confident about his plans. “Are you here to help me during this trial? Like a Tutorial Pixie?”

“Yeah, that’s a good analogy—a Tutorial Pixie, like on the outside. I’ll be your guide and administrator until you leave. If you do good, my life will get upgraded. If not, I’ll die.”

“What?” Zac blurted. “What’s up with those rules?”

“I don’t know, I was just born,” Null said. “My memories tell me that some of us prefer to hide it and then tell it later after we’ve bonded to get a better effect. But why not tell you from the start? In either case, let’s work hard at creating your core. I’ll do my best to guide you in the Perennial Vastness. You just focus on cultivation.”

“Just to be clear, will anyone find out about my actions in here?” Zac asked.

“You’re planning on creating trouble?” Null giggled. “That’s fine. The Perennial Vastness is neutral, and we will help sever any Karma and remove any tracking marks before you leave. Of course, even if the other guests can’t talk about you or recall your identity, they’ll certainly remember certain aspects of you. You’ll have to figure out a way to kill them before they leave or bear their grudge.

“I’m going a bit ahead of schedule here, but I can add that the boss has covered the whole place in a couple of special arrays. People won’t be able to remember your face or name on the outside. So even if you pass each other on the street, you won’t notice each other. But if you two clash and expose your auras, you’ll be able to tell.”

“I understand,” Zac said. “Killing is allowed?”

“There are some rules and restrictions, but essentially yes. Struggle is Heaven’s Law,” Null said.

As expected, you couldn’t just seclude yourself for a couple of years and form your core without a care in the world. Even then, Zac wasn’t planning on staying low-key. Trying to stay unnoticed might just end with him not getting the resources he needed to form his incredibly complicated Cosmic Core.

Furthermore, this trial wasn’t like the Twilight Ocean. There weren’t any old monsters around who could turn him into ash with a look. Secondly, he wasn’t the same person as he was back then. He’d entered the Twilight Ascent as a Middle E-grade cultivator with mostly F-grade skills, imperfect techniques, and Dao Fragments rather than Dao Branches.

By this point, almost all of his skills were already pushed to E-grade Peak-mastery, he had three Middle-stage Dao Branches, and his Combat Technique was already at Middle Integration. Even if he couldn’t guarantee he was the strongest participant here, he was definitely up there. This was doubly true when you considered that many peak factions, like Iz’s family, had their own unique methods of forming Cosmic Cores. Iz could obviously get her hands on a Perennial Vastness Token if she wanted it, but she had no interest or need to go to a place like this.

He was at the top of the food chain, and most of his actions here would be sealed away. So why shy away from taking what he needed to succeed in his breakthrough? Even if he had created a blueprint after years of work, only half the battle was won. And nothing came for free in the Multiverse. Why would the Perennial Vastness be any different?

He would have to be both ruthless and shameless to snatch as many benefits as possible.

“You have the aura of a bloody conqueror,” Null said, but there was no reproach in her voice. “That’s good. I think I’ll be one of the survivors. But don’t get ahead of yourself. It’s not a completely lawless place. Are you ready for the tour?”

“Absolutely,” Zac said, inwardly relieved that his unique constitution hadn’t elicited much of a reaction except getting a tailor-made guide.

Zac hadn’t gained much from the Undead Empire regarding the Perennial Vastness over the past years. If there were any factions with an inside scoop, the Undead Empire wasn’t part of them. Instead, they’d been forced to infer what little they knew. For example, people understood it was a time-dilated trial by measuring the Temporal Energy inside the bodies of those who returned.

According to the delegates from the Undead Empire, the average cultivator seemed to have spent seventeen years in this place, at a temporal ratio of 1:10. Oddly enough, there didn’t appear to be a strong correlation between how good a core the people got and how long they stayed.

In fact, those who stayed the full fifty years generally emerged with suboptimal results. Conversely, there had been many examples of people emerging after just a few years with great cores. That was exactly Zac’s goal, so he could return before the war started in earnest.

“Just one question, though. I want to join up with two other guests. Is that possible?”

“Of course. Some choose to go at it alone, while others team up. Both are viable options as you fight for Mana.”

“Mana?”

“That’s right,” Null said as a gate opened in front of Zac. “The next few years of your life will be spent obsessing over Mana. Of how to get it and how to protect what you have. Only with enough Mana can we both reforge our fates. Now, let’s go!”

Roiling clouds shrouded the situation on the other side of the gate, and Zac almost blanked out from the incredibly dense energy that wafted over him.

So far, the Perennial Vastness lived up to its name.

2

A DANGEROUS GAME

The message stopped playing, leaving a pregnant pause in the room.

“What a fine mess.” Laz Tem’Zul sighed, the Draugr Monarch’s eyes turning to his ward.

He wasn’t the only one. Everyone’s eyes were on her, expressions ranging from annoyance to bemusement. Furthermore, she’d bet her cultivation that Kator would be grinning ear to ear if the Reavers had expressions to gauge. Tavza took the looks in stride, knowing this day was coming since that little troublemaker absconded.

“I admit, I did not expect Catheya Sharva’Zi to do something like this,” Tavza said. “Being the commanding officer on the excursion, I take responsibility for this situation. However, I cannot help but wonder what would bring the child of Zi to do something like this. She had to know this would damage our undertaking.”

Laz nodded in agreement. “It’s ultimately the fault of that willful lass we are in this situation. She knew the stakes yet chose to throw a wrench into the machinery.”

“She is willful but loyal to the Empire,” Enis Umbri’Zi frowned. “Without her, we would not be as well positioned as we are, no matter if it’s for the upcoming war or the struggle for the Eternal Heritage. More importantly, she’s not so bored she would run for her life, hijacking a vessel. The surveillance arrays can only give one side of the full picture. She clearly feared for her life.”

“Why would I kill her for a seal? The net benefit would be zero,” Tavza rejected. “If anything, it would be a guaranteed loss. Someone chosen naturally will most likely be more useful inside than someone who stole a ticket. And that’s not even including the damage to our cooperation agreement. I was rather thinking of putting her under house arrest for the way she pushed beyond her capabilities, almost getting herself killed in search of personal strength.”

“Three years you’ve kept us from communicating with that brat, and this is the fallout,” Toss grunted. “We brought his teacher just to pull him over to our side, yet you wasted our window of opportunity with your nonsense.”

“He wouldn’t appear in person for his close friend; what makes you think he’d show up for Pavina Sorgo?” Laz scoffed.

“Either case, we are sending a petition to the Heart. Your handling of this matter has been crude at best,” Toss said. “The Izh’Rak Reavers will be taking charge of this matter. Tavza is powerful, but she doesn’t have leadership experience like Kator. She’s been locked away in her castle all her life, never having been forced to come into contact with the ugliness of the world.”

“Leading a bunch of brutes in head-on battles against the Primal Council might not be more useful than my knowledge of ancient arrays. And I have the Abyss on my side,” Tavza calmly said. “Not to mention, he is falling behind.”

“I may have one fewer sealbearer, but that was before you lost one,” Kator laughed. “Also, war is our specialty. There’s no way we won’t find more seals than you over the coming years. Besides, my taking charge will alleviate some of the tension with that ally of ours.”

“Leadership is up to the Eternal 108 to decide,” Laz calmly said.

It looked like Toss was about to continue arguing, but a gentle knock on the door drew everyone’s attention.

“Come,” Toss said, and the door opened.

“I am sorry to interrupt,” Tassar said, repeatedly bowing to the trio of Monarchs. “I have the report the lords asked for.”

“Anything?” Tavza asked, keeping her face impassive.

“Ah, that’s…” Tassar hesitated.

“Just say your piece,” Laz Tem’Zul said. “Let the truth speak on its own.”

The Kavriel Patriarch nodded, clearly not relishing being forced into the middle of the internal strife that had been escalating over the past years.

“We found traces of [Kazh Strangleroot] in the vat Miss Sharva’Zi used to recover her wound. Actually, we were lucky the vat was slightly damaged. The compound had already been replaced by untampered medicine, but a small amount of the liquid had leaked inside a gathering tray below.”

“Strangleroot?” Tavza said. “Someone placed a hallucinogen inside the tank? Why?”

“Well,” Tassar coughed. “It wouldn’t be a hallucinogen at the levels we measured. But if exposed continuously, it would elicit feelings of paranoia, of being watched. Since we found the Strangleroot, we knew what to look for. We also found weak traces of it in a duct leading to Miss Sharva’Zi’s room.”

“Someone was dosing that girl?” Tavza frowned.

“You’ve been had, child,” Laz sighed, turning an even look at the Reavers.

“What? Do the vaunted delegates of the Abyssal Shores have something to say?” Kator laughed.

“You?” Tavza frowned. “Guess you’re not just an empty set of bones.”

“I don’t like what you’re insinuating,” Kator shrugged. “How is it my fault you have no control over the personnel or your vessel? But this just proves what Brigadier Toss said. You don’t know the cruelties of war, thinking this is an outing with your servants.”

“Your stunt may have cost us a potentially useful helper mission,” Tavza said. “Neither of us managed to become a Flamebearer, but he is one. If he won’t help us—”

“Where did you get that?” Kator asked, scratching his skull. “Didn’t you hear the guy say how much he enjoyed the cooperation? Might be a bit wary of you guys, though. But that sounds like a Draugr problem rather than an imperial problem.”

“This may push him into choosing his dreamer form in the upcoming trial,” Tavza said with a scowl.

“What does that have to do with the mission?” Kator countered. “We can just work with him in his dreamer form, no? He still needs our help for his undead subordinates and backing inside that place. Again, not a problem.”

“These actions go beyond the scope of the mission. This is harming the foundations of the Abyssal Shores,” Laz said, killing intent leaking out of his body to the point the whole castle shuddered.

However, an opposing aura of boundless bloodthirst rose to match it from Toss, causing tears in space to crop up. Tavza sighed as four runes appeared around her, preventing the ruthless auras from reaching her. Kator simply withstood it with his bones, clearly relishing the conflict.

“Please, lords,” Tassar Kavriel entreated. “There are hundreds of thousands of dutiful workers of the Empire caught in your auras.”

Laz snorted, but his aura vanished a moment later.

“If the Abyssal Shores have a complaint and the proof to back it up, they are welcome to bring it up through the normal channels,” Toss said when the shakings abated. “Just like how I will put forth that Kator be made the mission leader.”

“This isn’t over,” Laz said. “If this costs the Abyssal Shores the Bloodline of Eoz, there will be consequences.”

“You can rail against the injustice, but I would be careful pushing too hard,” Toss countered. “After all, it’s not only the Izh’Rak Reavers who are content maintaining the equilibrium.”

“Let’s go,” Laz said, walking out of the meeting with Tavza and Enis in tow.

“I know Catheya has caused some problems this time, but she’s not a fool,” Enis said. “I’m sure she’ll be able to figure out something was amiss with her situation after getting the medicine out of her system and thinking things over.”

“The Strangleroot wouldn’t create new enemies in her mind,” Laz said with a pointed look. “It would only amplify those that were already there.”

“Still. The Umbri’Zi is fully committed to helping out in this endeavor, including bringing Arcaz back to the Heartlands.”

“If there’s even an Arcaz left by the time he emerges,” Tavza sighed.

“That’s…” Enis said before sighing and shaking her head. “Let me know if you need my assistance.”

Enis returned to her quarters while Tavza and Laz walked in oppressive silence to their wing of the castle. A few minutes later, they reached a sealed chamber, where Laz released a series of Runeseeker Eyes to look for hidden arrays or spies. He nodded at Tavza, who smiled slightly.

“Did you get it?” Tavza asked as she sat down.

“Thankfully, Lord Tem’Zul’s outburst allowed me to condense the conversation without being noticed,” Sepravo A’Tem, the stealthy Monarch always shadowing her, nodded as he appeared and handed her a crystal. “I could not get the final exchange, though. Toss would have sensed me dragging the conversation from the past without the interference.”

“That’s fine,” Tavza nodded. “What you got is enough for our purpose. Can you bring the two of them out?”

“Of course, miss,” Sepravo said.

A Revenant and a dour-looking human appeared in the room. “Greetings, mistress,” both said with a bow.

“Your mission is to find Arcaz Umbri’Zi or Catheya Sharva’Zi inside the Perennial Vastness. Give them this recording. Keep a respectful distance, and try not to interfere with their business. Keep watch for agents of the other Divine Races; I fear they might be planning something similar.”

“We will accomplish the mission without fail,” the Revenant said.

“Good,” Tavza said before turning to Sepravo. “I’m sorry, but we will have to activate the tokens inside your Inner World to hide the ripples. The wound will heal slowly in this environment.”

“It’s a small matter,” Sepravo said. “I will prepare a hole in my aperture to minimize the loss.”

“Go, then,” Tavza said. “We don’t know how things work inside. The closer they enter together, the greater their odds of running into each other.”

“Then I shall take my leave,” Sepravo bowed then disappeared.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Laz commented after the Revenant Monarch left. “If you fail, the consequences are huge. Appearing incompetent will be the least of your worries.”

“I was left with no options. The status quo couldn’t go on. If not for those spies, I would have been forced to do something on my own and hope to frame Kator,” Tavza said. “Only by breaking down the current structures can we begin to rebuild. As for looking incompetent, who cares? What does my reputation matter in the face of furthering our goals?

“If Acraz Umbri’Zi sees he’s being plotted against by the other factions of the Undead Empire, he’ll be faced with two choices. Either move toward the Abyssal Shores or try to elude the Empire altogether. Kator was right about one thing. Arcaz still needs us for his undead followers and to act as a guarantor. He clearly has not severed his emotions to the point he can sacrifice his home world and hide away.”

“Why not nip the problem in the bud when you noticed it?” Laz asked.

Tavza knew Laz didn’t need her to explain it. He was rather trying to gauge her understanding before reporting back to the shores. This was a huge gamble, one the elders back home would have vetoed if they had the chance. But everything she’d learned and seen of this wretched region, everything she’d gathered about Arcaz Umbri’Zi, told her this was the only path.

He was Chaos incarnate.

Perhaps it was by design, perhaps he was a pawn of the Heavens. It didn’t matter. Staying the course and relying on the experience and lessons gained over eons would fail in both unexpected and extravagant ways. Fate twisted around that man in terrifying ways, leaving utter bedlam in his wake.

She had to push their relationship closer, or the storm would ruin her plans. For years, they’d prodded and tried everything with this outsider, but he was more slippery than an Abyssal Eel. In a way, it had been illuminating. She’d thought any cultivator living on the frontier would jump at the opportunity to become part of an empire like theirs. How wrong she’d been.

“Arcaz does not trust us in the slightest. Three years and we haven’t even managed to get a blood sample to confirm his bloodline. If not for the details he shared with us and Prince Mez’s divination, I would have thought he was lying. He is merely too paranoid. Even if I dealt with the spies, he might as well consider it a ploy to build trust. If the news even reached him.

“This way, we can at least make ourselves appear marginally better by dragging the Reavers through the mud. It may be the first step toward building a real rapport.”

“But what if he chooses his human side?”

“Kator has a point. We don’t need a Draugr for the inheritance. But Arcaz knows there is a time after that, and the agreement is with Acraz Umbri’Zi, not Zachary Atwood,” Tavza said, though she felt some exhaustion over the matter. “Ultimately, it’s out of our hands. We can only put our faith in the divination of Prince Mez. The Heavens indicate we will get what we seek.”

“What about Kator?” Laz asked. “We will be hard-pressed to contend for leadership as things stand.”

“The situation is fluid,” Tavza said. “Today, the winds are blowing east. Who’s to say which direction it’ll blow tomorrow? A lot can happen in four years.”

Zac’s heart drummed with anticipation as Null somehow moved him into the hole. Incredible energies teeming with meaning celebrated his arrival. For the first time in years, he lamented he wasn’t a cultivator who could take advantage of this environment. Zac soon remembered the truth, though, which settled his heart. He couldn’t make use of the dense Dao in this realm, but neither could the cultivators.

The world was in a Temporal Chamber, and anyone who dared ponder on the Dao in this environment would find it twisted and out of tune with the Heavens. Still, it was most likely an incredibly useful building block for cultivators to speed up the formation of their cores. Most sects and clans had similar gathering arrays, as did the Atwood Academy nowadays, and even areas in the Orom World he visited were the same.

Except, those places couldn’t compare. This whole world was filled with the Dao, and it wasn’t limited to one specific element. It was almost like a corner of the Heavens had been stuffed into a Mystic Realm. Was this how the environment was in the more flourishing regions of the Multiverse? No wonder his mother wanted to take Kenzie to the Six Profundity Empire.

One’s body would gradually acclimatize to this kind of cultivation environment, while cultivation and meditation would yield far greater results. The environment was even better than in his cultivation cave, and this was while floating around in the air. If he added gathering arrays…

Zac was dragged out of his daydreams by a weak mental nudge. Zac could have easily extinguished it with his soul, but he let the tendril into his aperture. Simultaneously, a small band appeared on his left wrist, seemingly made of glass that absorbed light rather than reflected it. He wouldn’t have known it was there if not for the mental connection that formed.

“Null, is that you?” Zac asked.

“It’s me,” the guiding spirit confirmed, and Zac wasn’t sure if he heard the voice in his mind or reality. “I’ll usually be taking this form during your stay.”

“You’ll be watching my every move?” Zac asked.

“Kind of,” Null said. “But you know, even if I didn’t, the boss would. He’s everywhere at once, so there are no keeping secrets here. You either have to live with that fact or leave.”

“I know, I know,” Zac said. “Where is this? I can’t see anything.”

“The space before was sort of a gateway. Starting now, you’ve entered the real Perennial Vastness, and time moves at ten times the outside speed. This is the Energy Nimbus surrounding the whole domain. If you want, you can hire a vessel to fly around in it in the future. There are some interesting places hiding inside, but finding them is a matter of fate and chance.”

Zac tried sensing anything within the surroundings. There was just an ocean of energy, no matter how far his consciousness spread. “So, what’s next?”

“I’m taking you to get your starting kit,” Null said. “Then, we’ll find a place for you to settle down.”

“What about my friends?”

“Space is relative. As soon as you pick a spot, you’ll be able to find the others. You will understand soon,” Null answered as another gate appeared before them.

The next moment, Zac floated in the center of a huge circular square. It was made from a singular piece of smooth rock and lined with seventeen pillars. No two pillars looked alike, and each emitted unfathomable power. Zac’s eyes first turned to a pillar made from twisted steel, looking almost like a thin hurricane covered in runes.

Chaos.

Another was made from innumerable weapons, most of which Zac didn’t recognize. Just glancing at it filled Zac with such pressure he was forced to look away lest his soul be torn into ribbons. Others were simple to understand; the pillars of the Elements or Nature were easy to spot. Some were more mysterious, though Zac had a decent idea of what most represented.

“What’s this?” Zac still asked.

“This is the most commonly accepted model of the Heavens. Seventeen Peaks of the Grand Dao. The Nine Seals and Eight Thrones,” Null said.

“Nine by eight. One destiny,” Zac muttered and immediately regretted it.

Two simple sentences, and the whole world started heaving.

3

NINE BY EIGHT

The square shuddered at his words, filling Zac with alarm as Fate gathered around him like when he uttered the word ‘Ultom.’ It wasn’t just the world, either. Each of the pillars had hummed into life, and Zac found himself awash with terrifying truths far beyond what he could handle.

Seventeen distinct Daos flooded the square, forcing Zac to be an unwilling witness to a tremendous clash urged on by a torrent of Fate. Zac didn’t know if the energies were trying to destroy the world or recreate the Heavens on Earth. Either way, the energies were reaching dangerous levels, and Zac sought an escape path.

Before he could start running for his life, a heavy pressure descended and quelled the unrest, scattering the winds of Fate and dragging apart the currents of Dao. It wasn’t the System but the entity that scanned him upon his arrival. The Perennial Vastness itself had made a move.

“Ah!” Null exclaimed. “The boss is telling you to cut it out. Knowledge and Fate can give words power, and you’re touching upon that ancient conflict. You’ll cause trouble.”

“Ancient Conflict?” Zac frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking that?” Null lazily said. “I was born less than an hour ago. What do I know about these matters? Even if I did, I couldn’t tell you. If the boss doesn’t want to get involved, then I’m definitely going to stay clear. We only get one life, and I’m not going to throw mine away on stuff I don’t understand.”

“That’s—” Zac quieted, a prickling killing intent was right behind him, almost like a needle sticking into the back of his head.

There was no delay or hesitation. [Verun’s Bite] appeared in his hand, and three runes had already lit up as Zac unleashed a herculean swing at whatever was behind him. Axe hit flesh, but Zac felt the bones in his arm creak when the edge that was supposed to make its way through the enemy was forced to an abrupt halt. A tremendous rebound followed, confirming that Zac was dealing with something extremely dangerous. His fears were realized when he managed to take in what he’d just attacked.

A face.

The face was as large as Zac was tall and belonged to a creature with more girth than height. Its greenish face was covered in such a dense beard and bushy eyebrows that Zac suspected it had some beastkin blood in its ancestry. In reality, the appearance was closer to some sort of demonic troll. Its huge nose was wider than Zac’s face, and four glistening horns covered in archaic runes protruded from its skull.

The eyes were even bigger, each one as large as a manhole cover, and Zac felt extremely exposed as they stared at point-blank range. Especially considering his axe was stuck trying to penetrate its left pupil without much luck. No barriers or Cosmic Energy kept the razor-sharp edge of [Verun’s Bite] at bay.

His axe was hitting the monster’s eye, yet it was his axe that suffered damage. Cracks covered Verun’s edge, and Zac felt a mix of pain and fear in his mind from the Tool Spirit. Zac urgently jumped back a few meters, activating the seldom-used fourth rune on his axe, prompting it to start molting and regenerating.

Thankfully, the troll creature made no move to follow, and the sense of impending doom was completely gone. It just stood there on two stubby legs, each as thick as a tree, holding a three-meter staff. It wore a set of earth-tone robes, which looked incredibly odd on such a disproportioned creature.

“As expected, you chose violence,” the troll laughed as it tapped its staff onto the ground, prompting odd ripples to spread through the square. “Conflict, indeed. Pretty sharp senses, too, though it took you a few seconds to notice me.”

Zac blankly stared at the huge creature. Had this thing stood right behind him for seconds without him noticing?

“Lord Engo!” Null exclaimed.

“What? Who?” Zac whispered.

“Lord Engo is one of the boss’s oldest disciples. He’s at the threshold of Supremacy.”

Surprise swept through Zac. He’d known it was powerful, but a Peak Autarch? Those beings weren’t quite as rare as Supremacies, but it wasn’t that far-off either. It also proved just how powerful the Perennial Vastness was if they had such powerful disciples.

“A Realm Spirit has disciples?” Zac muttered.

“We’re all equal in the face of the Dao,” Engo smiled. At least Zac thought he did. It was hard to tell, with the troll’s maw being a two-meter-wide vortex of teeth and horror. “Origins mean nothing at the peak. Only your path and your purpose do.”

Zac nodded after some thought. What the troll said was true. There were cultivators like Ubo in the Orom World. He was originally just a normal rock that happened to be in a particularly Dao-dense environment, which accidentally created a spark of sapience. Zac himself had a soul sliver of a likely dead cultivator for a master. It wasn’t that weird for a powerful realm to take in disciples.

“Don’t be so nervous,” Engo guffawed. “I was nearby and sensed Fate gathering, so I came over to see what was going on. It’s not often you see such winds of providence from people who haven’t yet shed the chains of mortality.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Zac coughed.

“Do you want to know?” Engo grinned. “About what you asked.”

Zac would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious, but this felt like a matter far beyond someone like him. Just knowing about it might entangle him in unexpected ways, like how the Remnants seemingly influenced his path in their desire to fuse with their brethren.

Still, he’d heard the term Nine Seals, Eight Pillars, and One Destiny during his first vision of Ultom. Now he’d heard something similar, except the Pillars were called Thrones. Not knowing what they were dealing with might put him and his followers in danger after they entered the inheritance.

“The broad strokes, if it’s convenient for you,” Zac said.

“Broad strokes,” Engo hummed. “Well, show me something interesting, and you’ll know.”

‘What does that mean?’ Zac inwardly asked, hoping Null could hear him.

“See that pedestal in the middle?” Null answered. “You need to show your planned core. Not for Lord Engo, but as part of orientation. Depending on how good it is, you will get a set amount of starting Mana.”

Zac was curious about this Mana, but one thing at a time.

“How do I show my blueprint?” Zac asked.

“However you want. Place a blueprint on it. Infuse it with your mind. We’ve seen it all.”

“Alright,” Zac said, glancing at the Autarch before walking over to the pedestal.

Zac placed his hand on the white stone and infused some Cosmic Energy. He then imprinted his blueprint, just like he’d record information on an Information Crystal. He could have placed the two carvings on the plinth, but he was afraid doing so would lead to the array misunderstanding his plan. Better to showcase the exact idea that existed in his mind.

The process only took a few seconds, after which he looked back at Engo, only to find the creature standing right next to him. Zac’s heart almost jumped out of his mouth. At least he didn’t swing at Engo this time. What was it with this big bastard and moving so stealthily? Did he enjoy startling people?

A light tap from Engo prompted the pedestal to light up and display a mesmerizing orb made up of innumerable lines in steely grey, gold, and black. The discerning eye would also notice invisible lines made by negative space—the Void.

Even the array couldn’t perfectly replicate the core, though. The projection shifted back and forth between two states, just like how it looked when Zac looked at his carvings from the right angle. As the blueprint spun above the recording pillar, two of the pillars hummed at the edge of the square.

The pillars of Chaos and Conflict.

“Life and Death connected through the Void and enkindled by Conflict,” Engo muttered, slightly nodding a few times as the core spun.

Zac inwardly grumbled at the reaction. It was just like the consciousness before, when it barely spared his Duplicity Core a second glance. Would it kill them to be a bit impressed? This was a core never-before-seen in the Multiverse. Why did Engo have to talk about it like it was yesterday’s weather?

A surge of energy distracted Zac’s thought, and two streams of energy entered Null on his wrist, each coming from the pillars of Chaos and Conflict. A set of patterns lit up on the band before sinking into its depths. Zac looked on with wonder, feeling that Null was changing on a fundamental level to accommodate his path. A few seconds later, the process was over, and the radiant blueprint hovering in the air disappeared.

If only the Core Formation process would be that simple.

“How intriguing. No wonder the System is keeping such a close watch on you. But I see that your understanding of the Void is not your own. It carries the shadow of the Left Imperial Palace and the inheritance it governs.”

“That’s…”

“Don’t worry. The Perennial Vastness has no intentions of involving itself with the ascent of the Fifth Pillar, nor the conflict it represents. We neither have the qualifications nor the desire to decide the direction of the era.” The troll grinned. “We all have our own pursuits.”

“Then, the answer?” Zac ventured. “What’s the ancient conflict? How does it relate to Ul—That place?”

“Why does an Era end?” Engo countered.

“That’s—” Zac hesitated, stumped by the shift in subject.

The question itself was interesting. The Dao was eternal, and the Heavens released and took back energy in an endless cycle. Why couldn’t it keep going forever? Was the universe leaking energy or something? Zac eventually shook his head, indicating he didn’t know.

“Suffice to say, while the Heavens are eternal, they aren’t static. Those at the peak can influence the Dao, and the Heavens also change on their own. An Era has a period of rapid growth as it recovers from the death of the previous one. Then follows a much longer span of stability as the Heavens move toward their peak. We’re in that stage now.

“In the future, the universe will reach its zenith, yet the Heavens will not stop changing, nor will cultivators stop imposing their wills onto the fabric of reality. This will lead to the Heavens drifting apart and the Dao growing more discordant. Eventually, the Multiverse cannot function and gets ripped apart as the Dao collapses.

“Some believe this natural cycle of growth and decay is yet another limit meant to be broken. Cultivation is to go against fate, so why not break open the Heavens and see what’s beyond? Only that way can our potential be truly unlocked. Only that way can the path of cultivation move toward true Eternity. The Heavens are the final gatekeeper to that ancient goal. The Thrones represent the will of the greatest emperors, those who have levied their swords at the Terminus.”

Zac shuddered, remembering the boundless anger of the Statuette in the temple of Ultom. Or Eoz’s memories of the forebearers who left their gifts in the Abyss. Were they part of this group? Holding the belief that the Heavens was a prison, seeking to break the limits of what was possible. Was that the sorrow of reaching the peak? An incompleteness that their path had not yet ended, but the Heavens were blocking the way?

“Others believe that doing something like that will destroy the road of cultivation. If there is an Eternity, it can only be found by perfecting the Heavens and fusing with them rather than destroying the Dao. The Zenith of an Era is the key. If they can seal the Heavens at that moment by taking control of it, they have a chance at Eternity.”

“Boundless Path and Heaven’s Path,” Zac muttered.

“You could look at it that way, though things are seldom so black and white,” Engo laughed. “This is a gross simplification of the conflict. In reality, there are as many beliefs and paths as there are cultivators. A Throne may not necessarily want to destroy the Heavens, and a Seal may not necessarily aim to perfect the Heavens. Most simply desire the power those titles represent or see them as the key to reaching the next stage of existence.

“Don’t bother asking me about who these people are,” Engo added, shutting down Zac’s next question. “You’ve seen how a few words can have enormous effects.”

“Why Nine Seals and Eight Thrones?”

“That, I don’t know,” Engo shrugged. “For some reason, that’s how the Heavens are arranged. Eight pillars lift the Heavens, and Nine Seals keep it all in check. If not for those at the top of the food chain having seized corners of the Dao, then each Peak Dao would have represented either a Seal or a Throne. This is how it’s been for some Eras. Perhaps the inherent nature of Heaven leans toward preservation rather than destruction?”

Zac frowned as he looked at the pillars around him, remembering the conflict the Void Priestess, mentioned. The conflict over the direction of the era. It was definitely related to this struggle. Some factions wanted to seize Ultom and use it to break open the Heavens, while others wanted to become the Heavens and seal the Dao to prevent it from drifting apart.

And how was this related to the System and Heaven’s Path? Was there more to the System than the official story, that it was a training device for the war of the Limitless Empire? Could this be why the System so desperately wanted his Motes of Chaos? To perfect its understanding of the Dao before the Heavens reached the zenith?

“No need to look so troubled,” Engo said. “This matter is ultimately something for those at the top. Just know that the ascent of the next pillar will attract people from both sides of the conflict, along with neutral parties just seeking power. And with these kinds of stakes, the battle will be beyond brutal.”

“Which parties are on which sides?” Zac asked.

“That, you’ll have to figure out on your own,” Engo snorted as he looked to the sky. “Master seems to feel I’ve been talking too much already. Well, this was an interesting encounter, so I’ll bend the rules a little more. You should check out the Quarry before you start working on your core.”

There were more things Zac wanted to ask, such as the details about Ultom. But Zac knew this was it, so he bowed respectfully.

“Thank you for your guidance.”

The troll nodded and was gone, like it had never been there.

“Lucky guy,” Null said. “But I guess it makes sense. Your core is super weird. It would be odd if neither the boss nor his disciples showed any interest in your idea.”

“Then they were just acting cool and collected?” Zac smiled.

“I mean, it’s still just a Cosmic Core,” Null giggled. “Lord Engo is millions of years old and only cares about completing his pillar and ascending. Would he lose his composure over the clever idea of a brat? Perhaps he pitied you because you also walk a pure path toward a broken peak?”

“Whatever,” Zac snorted. “What’s the Quarry?”

“Remember what I said about Mana and the many realms? Well, the Quarry is one of them. It’s one of the lower-tier zones, though, and all guests can visit for free for a week. After that, it’s 10 Mana a day.”

“And is that little?” Zac asked. “How much do I have to start off with?”

“Look at your Status Screen.”

Zac opened it, and everything looked the same except for one part. A new line had been added below his Nexus Coins.

[Mana: 2,500]

“Just so you know, the starting Mana ranges between 500 and 2,500 depending on your core,” Null added. “So full marks for you! Of course, that doesn’t mean your core is perfect or anything. It just means it reaches the level for the highest payout. Roughly 5% of all guests do.”

Zac nodded in satisfaction, though he wasn’t too surprised. If he couldn’t reach the top 5% of the guests after hundreds of lake-empowered epiphanies and using the full opportunity of a Seal of the Left Imperial Palace, he might as well give up on cultivation.

“So, what’s with this Mana?” Zac asked. “I can’t sense it at all.”

“It’s the fundamental currency in the Perennial Vastness. Rather than one large continent, it’s more accurate to consider the Perennial Vastness a gathering of thousands of subordinate treasure realms full of opportunities. You can visit them to prepare the materials for your breakthroughs or search for enlightenment, but doing so isn’t free. That’s where Mana comes in.”

“So Mana is kind of like Contribution Points?” Zac said.

It sounded a lot like his time in the Orom World, where he accumulated Contribution Points by improving his cultivation. The points, in turn, could be used to get more resources, keeping the process going.

“It’s similar, but Mana is more than that. Mana is akin to providence in the Perennial Vastness. The more Mana you wield, the greater your impact on your surroundings will be. The world will be molded in your image.”

“My image?” Zac said, his gaze returning to the pedestal.

“Exactly! As you gather Mana, the environment will get more and more suited for your breakthrough. Eventually, the world itself will assist you in the process. You might be a mortal with no affinities, but you can still rouse the Heavens to assist you here. It’s part of what makes the Perennial Vastness unique.”

A smile spread across Zac’s face. The difficulty of forming his core had weighed on his shoulders over the past years. Even if he had figured out the blueprint, it was so incredibly complex that he hadn’t been certain it was possible to form as a mortal. But if the world itself could help him out, the pressure suddenly decreased by a lot.

Mana was the key, and anyone who got in his way would have to watch their back.

4

HOME BASE

Null’s explanation was music to Zac’s ears. This was exactly what he’d hoped for. The opportunities and various treasure realms would certainly be useful, but Zac was more interested in the aspect of providence. Being able to use the energy of the world to contain and nurture his core while it was being built was a huge advantage for someone like him.

A cultivator would naturally form their core by rotating their manual and making small adjustments. It was almost like a fetus that grew gradually and in harmony with the Heavens. Meanwhile, a mortal’s process was more like building a bomb inside your body by cramming more and more energy inside, all while trying to impose your blueprint on it.

“Mana helps me form a core, but visiting the realms costs Mana?” Zac confirmed. “Won’t that slow me down?”

“To use the Mana is to take a risk,” Null agreed. “It might be a waste of time and a loss of resources, but you may also find unique treasures that will drastically help you with your Cosmic Core. You can rely on things you’ve brought or purchased from others, but you know how it is with the best treasures.”

Ultimately, many of the best resources couldn’t be preserved long after being harvested. They relied on a unique environment to be born in the first place. The moment you took it away, the treasure would lose some of its spirituality. The Primal Dao he ate at the Twilight Chasm was a perfect example of that. It wouldn’t last a second after being freed from the purification array.

It was the same with many of the treasures he’d brought out of the Twilight Ocean. Some had lost most of their efficacy upon leaving that environment. Others had turned into complete trash. That was why Peak-quality items weren’t the best things around per grade. They were just the best among what could be safely stored.

This was a big reason why even wealthy elites visited places like wild realms and other unique areas untouched by cultivators. It was the only way to access some of the best stuff. As for the supreme items, they were either top-tier resources that had retained an unusual amount of their efficacy after being removed, or items forcibly sealed by High-grade cultivators. But they could never reliably be grown and harvested, at least not in the frontier.

“Besides, this is the Perennial Vastness, not some random Mystic Realm,” Null continued. “The System and boss have worked together to create a few opportunities and types of treasures you simply won’t find on the outside. Even those with powerful backing usually end up spending quite a bit of Mana on excursions.”

“Does the Quarry have things like that?” Zac asked.

“Yep!” Null said. “You can excavate something called Fate Kernels there. They’re a unique resource of the Perennial Vastness. If you find a suitable one, it’ll help with your Core Formation. It’s pretty popular among less-talented cultivators since the stones can harmonize with Mana and your home base in a way that outside items can’t.”

It made sense Engo told him to go there. But Zac wondered if there was more to Engo’s hint since he would definitely visit a place like that after learning of it. Were there perhaps secrets beyond what you could see on the surface?

“Any idea why Lord Engo asked me to go there?” Zac ventured.

“Who knows?” Null giggled. “He maybe took pity on you because of your lacking affinities? You’ll just have to check things out for yourself.”

Zac snorted. “Whatever. So, how do I get more points?”

“Well, first of all, you will get 500 Mana every month in the beginning, though that’s only until you reach 10,000. After that, you will instead be charged 100 Mana a month. At 20,000, we charge 200, and so on.”

“What? Why?” Zac said.

“It’s not cheap to maintain the benefits provided by Mana. The more you accumulate, the greater the benefits, but the higher the fee. Some use these rules to their advantage and keep themselves at lower tiers for years. But if you ask me, that’s a loser’s path.”

Staying at the lower-tier made sense, getting 500 free Mana a month to use on accumulated resources. Though from how Null explained things, he could accumulate Mana and treasures simultaneously, which would save a lot of time.

“How much do the top people normally have at their peak?” Zac asked.

“The greatest elites usually accumulate over 100,000 Mana by the time they start forming their Cosmic Cores in earnest. However, going much further is almost impossible for multiple reasons.”

Zac contrasted that information with what he knew before entering this place. He had fifty years to accumulate Mana at a maximum, and most elites left within a decade. In other words, they accumulated at least 10,000 points a year, most likely while using the various facilities and opportunities. Then, there’s the fee to take into account, which meant it would get harder and harder to accumulate Mana.

He should probably be aiming at least double the number, especially considering he might need more than the 100,000 accumulated Mana talented cultivators used. Zac set a preliminary goal of gaining 2,500 Mana a month. That way, he should be able to push past 100,000 Mana within a decade while not denying himself the various opportunities the Perennial Vastness offered.

“I’m guessing there are multiple ways to accumulate Mana?”

“Of course, we’ve got it all!” Null said. “But you can boil it down to missions and robbery.”

Zac smiled. Things were looking better by the second. The situation made him remember the Sovereignty-quest he undertook after dealing with the Mystic Realm. He’d been like a wolf let loose amongst a bunch of sheep when pitted against the other progenitors of the Sector.

“Can I buy Mana with treasures or Nexus Coins?” Zac asked.

“No,” Null giggled. “And you should be thankful for that. Some very rich people occasionally find themselves in these parts. They’d be able to bully everyone with their wealth.”

“What does someone buying Mana have to do with me?” Zac asked with confusion.

“I told you. Mana is everything in this place,” Null said. “Watch.”

Zac first didn’t understand what Null meant, but a gold, steel, and black barrier sprung up around him the next moment. Zac looked at it with marvel, feeling a sense of connection. It was his Cosmic Core. Or rather, the barrier was based on the concepts of his core. It rotated around him, shielding him from the surroundings.

The barrier remained for another five seconds before disappearing, and Zac breathed out in relief upon confirming his Mana was still 2,500.

“What was that?” Zac asked.

“The more Mana you have, the greater protection of the world you’ll enjoy. That also means those with higher Mana have an inherent advantage. So, work hard and quickly gather Mana, or someone with more Mana than you might be able to bully you when you’re out looking for treasure.”

Turned out the Perennial Vastness wouldn’t be a complete free-for-all where he could wantonly rob Mana to rapidly ascend. There were checks and balances in place that allowed conflict but kept it within bounds. Before starting a robbing spree, he’d have to figure out how much Mana helped in battle.

“Are there people here who have stayed decades already?”

“Of course,” Null said. “We call this event a Cosmic Gallery. It lasts for around 250 years on the outside, or 2,500 years in here. The current gallery has lasted for 67 years on the outside, so it’s been running for centuries already. At any given time, there are around 100,000 cultivators present.”

“What happens after the Cosmic Gallery ends?” Zac asked.

“We close the Perennial Vastness until the next gallery a few thousand years later.”

“Alright, so I need to gather more Mana to remove my newcomer’s disadvantage. What about breakthroughs? I cultivate both my Soul and Constitution. Do they provide Mana?”

“Not really. But also, yes?” Null said. “This place isn’t a sect. You don’t get Contribution Points for getting stronger. There are missions related to creation though! If you can create things like new Cultivation Manuals, skills, or other auxiliary methods, you might be able to claim Mana bounties.”

Zac sighed with disappointment. It sounded like neither of his upcoming breakthroughs would do him any good in here. Luckily, he wasn’t all out of options. There was one more thing he’d held onto until now, even though he’d been ready for a while now.

He could create new skills from scratch.

The main goal was to shore up some weaknesses in his two kits and get the accompanying title, but acquiring Mana would be a welcome bonus. Of course, there were no guarantees the skills he had in mind would result in any bounties. Ultimately, his two sides on their own weren’t that unique—there were trillions of undead cultivators who had fused Death and Conflict in their cultivation.

The odds of him creating a never-before-seen skill weren’t great, though he did have the benefit of pursuing Pure Daos. Furthermore, two “identical” skills could have some unique aspects. Even skills provided by the System could have slightly different features, depending on the cultivator’s class, Daos, and pathways. Such a difference would only be greater with self-created skills.

Apart from creating skills, there was also his [Void Vajra Sublimation]. He had made decent headway in recreating the fourth layer of the method already. Perhaps he could finish the job here. That method was definitely unique in the Multiverse. Researching it now would leave more of his final Ultom insight in the future to something else.

Ultimately, it depended on how much spare time he would have and how much Mana it’d be worth.

“So, what now?” Zac asked.

“You have left your mark, so now it’s time to build your base,” Null explained. “Follow me!”

Zac was about to ask what Null meant when a shimmering line appeared on the ground. It led out of the square and into an adjoining building. It reminded Zac of the guidance trajectories that his [Axe Mastery] created.

“Can others see and hear you?” Zac asked as he followed the tracking mark.

“No,” Null said. “Guides are individual. My words and these guidance markers are formed through our mental connection. You don’t even need to speak out loud to talk with me. You can mentally communicate with the wristband.”

“Can you help lead me to treasures as well?” Zac asked.

“You wish!” Null giggled. “I can lead you to various regions where you can find treasures, though. Like right now.”

The room he’d entered was almost like a smaller version of the circular square, except this room had a plinth at the edge. The pillars didn’t appear to contain such powerful Daos as the ones outside. Instead, they had shimmering gates in front of them, though it didn’t seem they were leading anywhere.

“First of all, take the guidebook,” Null said, and Zac picked up a thick tome lying on a nearby pedestal. “This thing lists all the realms you can visit, the prices, and so on.”

Zac nodded and stowed it away. He could look through the index of interesting places later. For now, he wanted to get set up so he could meet up with the others.

“Are we teleporting again?” Zac asked.

“The Perennial Vastness is big. Like, really big,” Null explained. “Even if you started running from one side, you wouldn’t even be close to halfway across after dying of old age. Because it’s too big for low-grade cultivators, the boss has chosen to remove the restrictions of space. You can pick a region that feels suited to you, and your manor will be built there.

“This room is connected with all the available regions where you can build your manor. If you infuse your will into the array, you’ll be able to browse their information and open gates to get a hint of the energy within.”

“And if I want to build a base close to my friends?” Zac asked.

“You shouldn’t think like that,” Null said. “Everyone has their own path, and you should pick a place suitable for your Core Formation. The manor will be connected to several hubs, and using most portals will cost you some Mana.”

“Basically, I can just teleport over to them,” Zac hummed.

“Exactly! There is Vastness City. The path to your manor will turn up like a storefront there, and the same is true for your friends. Shouldn’t be too hard to find them there, especially if they’re looking for you as well,” Null said.

Zac put his hand on the pedestal, and he almost groaned from the deluge of information that flooded his mind. Null wasn’t joking around when saying this place was big. The Orom World was just a backyard compared to seemingly endless environments here. A casual glance indicated over five hundred different environments related to the Dao of Fire.

Altogether, there were tens of thousands of options, each accompanied by a string of information. Zac even spotted the ruins of a Technocrat capital, where crazy robots still walked the streets. Of course, there were also environments related to his three Daos. Hundreds of them, to the point the options made Zac dizzy.

“You’ve seen my core,” Zac eventually said. “Do you have any suggestions?”

“Smart. Always listen to Null!” The guide laughed as the seventeen empty gates were replaced by four real ones.

Each one radiated incredibly dense energies, and while none of the four were anything like the others, they all contained something that attracted Zac.

“Your situation is difficult since you incorporate opposing elements and two different peaks. But you have options. The first is the nimbus you just visited. The nimbus is a blank slate; you can form it however you like,” Null began. “Settling on one of its floating islands is a decent option for people with cores incorporating many Dao Peaks.

“The second is the Sezho Battlefield. This should be the best suited out of the hundreds of ancient battlefields sealed in the Perennial Vastness. The Sezho were a civilization that fought the Limitless Empire before the System’s birth. Boss got his hands on a realm where one of the most heated battles was held. Even today, an extremely powerful aura of conflict lingers, and war is always a struggle of life versus death. The Sezho were even brutes, and the axe was one of their main weapons.

“It has extremely dense energies and should provide a good start. But the anger and defiance of the Sezho still linger. If you’re weak-willed, you’ll turn into a madman. Even those with stronger convictions will have a hard time focusing on their Core Formation.”

Zac nodded thoughtfully. If you considered your choice of manor a starting zone, then the nimbus was a neutral start. No negatives, but it would require more terraforming to suit his needs. The battlefield already had ample reserves of the Dao of Conflict, but Zac could feel the incredibly dense bloodlust and fell Karma through the gate.

It wasn’t at the level of what he’d sensed upon seeing the war torn Left Imperial Palace in his vision back when entering the Void Gate, but it surpassed the Bloodwind Planet’s environment.

“What about the others?” Zac asked.

“Mount Illumination,” Null said, and Zac turned to the gate that almost seemed to release Buddhist chants. “A consecrated mountain formerly belonging to the Sangha. The temples are gone, but a nimbus with the providence of Samsara remains. There’s both Life and Death. You just have to infuse your Conflict into the harmony to forge your path. As for the downside…”

“Pathbreaking,” Zac said.

“Some have come as fierce warriors and left as baldies,” Null giggled. “Well, they still made their cores, though.”

“What’s the final option?” Zac asked. The last gate was a pitch-black vortex releasing an incredibly ominous feeling.

“The Storm,” Null said. “A Remnant piece holding a whisp of the Primordial Chaos of the previous era. You’re walking the path of purity, and there are hints of its Terminus in there. However, that place is scary. The peak is still broken, and Chaos cannot exist in a stable state, creating an incredibly volatile atmosphere. Settling there will cost you 50 Mana a day, while other places are free.”

“All the places kind of have downsides,” Zac commented.

“Well, yes,” Null said. “The top-quality environments generally do. If your path was something simple like fire, you could just build your base inside a volcano. But you just had to make it complicated.”

“I guess that’s on me,” Zac smiled.

“Do you see one you like, or do you want to keep looking around?” Null asked.

“I think I know what I want, but let me double-check,” Zac said, and he spent the next ten minutes opening over one hundred different gates to inspect the energy they emitted.

Zac could soon confirm Null’s picks were right on the money. While many of the places he’d investigated seemed good, none were as good as the four she chose. There were a few without any downsides, but the Dao and Energy emitted were far worse than the four top options.

The gates closed and were replaced by a singular one. “Alright, let’s go with this one.”

5

PURE LAND

A towering mountain clad in a shroud of green, with a golden cloud circulating its peak. Mount Illumination.

As far as Zac could tell, it was simply the best option available, with the battlefield being the second option. The Storm might technically be the best option, holding the pure unblemished energies of Life and Death he needed, unsullied by ancient resentment or Buddhist resentment. Unfortunately, the downsides were too heavy. With a price tag of 1500 Mana a month, it would hamper his accumulation and access to other opportunities too much. He was better off visiting in search of treasures and opportunities than making it a permanent residence.

Conversely, the nimbus was too far from his path, and he didn’t want to spend that much time reforging his manor in his image. He wanted to start working on his core as quickly as possible. Overcoming the negatives of the other two places seemed faster. Their environments could even temper his willpower over time, which was free training.

Between ancient bloodlust and the Buddhist pathbreaking, Zac felt the latter would be easier to deal with. He was afraid that a pervasive killing intent from ancient Autarchs and possibly Supremacies would constantly try to kindle the conflict of his core, forcing him to place far more time and effort into keeping the core stable. As a mortal with a deep foundation, he already had enough problems in that regard.

The pathbreaking didn’t worry him as much thanks to his [Void Vajra Sublimation] and the concept of the Void it had imprinted on his heart. He wasn’t foolish enough to think Mount Illumination was just at the level of Mount Everlasting Peace back on Earth, but it should still be at the level of what elite E-grade cultivators could deal with.

His heart was far more tempered than most, and the biggest contributor wasn’t even the [Void Vajra Sublimation] or the Splinters of Oblivion and their whispers of destruction. It was the natural refinement he’d undergone through innumerable life-and-death encounters. Each hard-earned victory steadied one’s heart and reinforced one’s belief in their path. Iz had told him those who climbed mostly on their own efforts generally were better off at the higher stages of cultivation, and this was an important reason.

Besides, Mount Illumination already contained two of his three Daos, just like the storm. Finally, Zac admitted that the idea of using Mana and his Dao to break the path of Samsara on the mountain was pretty enticing after what they tried to pull with the [Boundless Vajra Sublimation].

“Alright, but prepare yourself,” Null said as energy accumulated in the room. “This isn’t the frontier.”

Zac took a steadying breath as the final gate shifted from being a window into an actual portal. A powerful gust of energy filled the room, so powerful that Zac’s mind almost blanked out. The feeling was far more powerful than when he first sensed the Energy Nimbus. Not only that, there was a clear flavor to the energy.

There were hints of Life and Death, but it wasn’t like the Twilight Energy, where Life and Death made up all the energy. Life and Death were only responsible for half of the insights pouring out of the gate, and they had been moved away from the Peak of Chaos to become subordinate concepts of something else.

Still, this kind of environment was amazing. The energy density was just shocking, and this was while he still stood outside looking in. The density would be far greater where he found a good spot to set up a gathering array. Even if he accepted the one half that resonated with him and rejected the rest, he would have more than enough energy for his needs.

Zac stepped through the gate and found himself at the foot of the verdant mountain. However, the scene looked drastically different in person. A Buddha, tens of thousands of meters tall sat behind the mountain. It looked like a whole pantheon crammed into one multidimensional body, a scene somehow both horrifying and comforting.

Its thousands of heads were seemingly staring right at him. Eyes met, and the world disappeared.

Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine gilded statues sat on the petals of a sky-blue lotus, each one consecrated in the name of Tārā. To take in the heavenly scent was to be annealed in the compassion of Buddha and saved from the suffering of Samsara. Above, an endless world blotted out the firmament, its divinity trickling down like rain toward the lotus.

Akaniṣṭha, the Pure Land.

He was at the threshold, arrived at the doors of paradise, yet still burdened by the sorrows of mortality. But the soothing hymns of the loving mother were slowly replacing suffering with contentedness. His whole soul was being illuminated, its shadows vanquished. His gaze turned to the heart of the lotus, the focus of the guardian devas.

A bracelet of simple wooden beads. Nine were natural brown, with the other eight painted black. At its center was an eighteenth bead painted red, seemingly containing the providence of the universe. Just looking at it made him want to sit down, mirror the pose of the guardians, and accept ordination.

Zac’s heart roared in defiance, and the world twisted. The lotus, the statues, and the paradise above disappeared. Replacing them was the lonely mountain, guarded by the enormous Buddha. Mount Illumination was completely different from when he first saw it. Thousands of red temples lined the slopes all the way to the peak, forming an intricate pattern.

The scene only lasted for a moment before his vision returned to normalcy, and the mountain was just a mountain once more. Zac’s back was slick with sweat, his heart wildly hammering as he desperately stabilized his mind. That had been too close. He hadn’t underestimated the power of the Sangha, yet it almost dragged him under for a moment.

“You’re back? Are you Zac, or do you have a new name?” Null’s voice echoed in his mind.

“Why would I have a new name?” Zac asked with a frown as he shook his head to clear his thoughts.

“That’s what happens when the old baldies get you. You’d discard your old identity and take on a Buddhist name. Almost looked like you were ready to discard your robes and don the kasaya.”

“And you didn’t try to prod me awake?” Zac complained.

“That’s not my job,” Null giggled. “I’m just a guide. I’m here to answer questions and help facilitate your stay, no matter if you’re an eminent monk or a brute from the frontier. Saving your butt is not part of the assignment. In fact, getting involved is strictly forbidden.”

“Well, you’re still stuck with me for the time being,” Zac grunted as he looked around. “There are no temples to settle inside?”

“All the temples were removed, but their foundations remain. You can either build your manor on those foundations or pick any random spot on the mountain,” Null explained.

Zac felt Null’s answer was a hint, even if an unintentional one. He didn’t think the vision just now was some random scenes his brain conjured from being invaded by the latent will of the Sangha. It was a remnant of the original face of the mountain. Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine temples, forming an array generating providence.

Could he make use of that fact?

“And I guess the best environment is at the top?” Zac ventured.

“Yep! It’s really dangerous up there, though. Much worse than here,” Null confirmed.

“Well, let’s see how far I can make it,” Zac said as he passed through the gate and started ascending the slopes.

It was just a theory, but Zac followed his memory of the mountain, heading toward the closest temple he’d seen upon waking up. There were no paths or steps, but the cliffside wasn’t hard to traverse. The forested slopes were practically pruned, forming natural, winding paths that further strengthened Zac’s guess that the mountain was covered in formations.

It almost felt like he was walking inside the corridors of the Gates of Rebirth again, where the forest formed an enormous natural array far surpassing anything Triv had managed to build in his cave. Yet, there was a good chance this formation was a natural result of the powerful truths the mountain still contained, rather than something intentionally built to further its effect.

Zac could feel his Daos in the soil beneath his feet, but he kept his heart closed off from any further input. The trees, their branches swaying in harmony, the leaves rustling like Buddhist chimes. It was reduced to a beautiful tapestry in Zac’s eyes. Something that could be appreciated, certainly, but not something that would change the course of his life.

Mount Illumination was as tall as the pre-Integration Tibetan peaks, but Zac was no pre-Integration mountain climber. He was a Peak E-grade Defier who could maintain a leisurely walking pace that would look like a blur to a mortal. It wouldn’t take him too long to reach the peak if he pushed himself.

Even when keeping a steady pace to avoid any surprises, it only took Zac a few minutes to reach the location of the closest temple. As expected, he found a foundation hidden among the trees. A simple square of fine white sand on a raised platform of large stone blocks. It wasn’t big, only twenty by twenty meters, but it would be more than enough to set up a temporary manor.

The energy was also denser around the platform than in the forest, and it almost sounded like the rustling leaves were the muted chants of scripture. Zac didn’t want to risk losing his composure again, so he took a steadying breath and closed his eyes. A few seconds later, he had become the Void, his heart ensconced in nothingness.

Years of practicing his [Void Vajra Sublimation] had long since allowed him to enter the ethereal state even when not practicing the stances. It had become a good and effective way to clear his mind after absorbing the corrupted lake water of the Lost Plane, and Zac also found it useful in this kind of environment. His accomplishments still weren’t as good as an actual Heart cultivator’s, but he could always add [Void Zone] to amplify the effect.

He could only maintain the meditative state while emptying his thoughts and closing off his surroundings. There was no way for him to retain it while walking around, especially not when fighting. Zac didn’t even know if something like that was needed since he didn’t want to become the Void during battle. It was the opposite, in fact, where he wanted to fuse with his Daos, not the lack of Dao.

After recalibrating his state of mind, Zac slowly opened his eyes. However, he almost lost his composure upon seeing a red temple proudly standing before him. Wooden beams held up a slated tile roof and the well-polished floor of the inner hall. There was even a shrine inside, but he couldn’t determine what kind of deva was consecrated within before the temple disappeared.

Zac remained still, thoughtfully looking at the once-again empty platform. Was it more than an illusion? True and false weren’t black and white in the Multiverse. There were various states of existence, and an illusion didn’t necessarily need to be a figment of one’s imagination. Janos had physically lived inside an illusion for years before finding his way back to reality.

So why couldn’t a temple exist when looked through a different lens of reality? It was possible that while the physical temples were gone, some sort of spiritual manifestations lingered. Then again, even if his theory was correct, did it matter?

“Do you like this place?” Null asked, dragging Zac out of his thoughts. “If you pick the platform, I can conjure a suitable manor in ten minutes. It’d take a bit longer if you picked a spot full of trees.”

“Can I move my base in the future?” Zac asked.

“Not really,” Null said. “There are Relocation Tokens, but finding them is a matter of luck. You can’t even buy them with Mana. You should get it right from the start.”

“Why not just let us move as we please?” Zac asked.

“Something about fate,” Null said with disinterest. “Plus, it costs money to keep building new ones. The manors aren’t just houses. They’re incredibly complex arrays that can help form Cosmic Cores. We have a budget to follow, you know.”

Zac smiled, feeling like Null sounded like a penny-pinching bureaucrat. “Then can I wait with choosing a manor?”

“Nope, you have one day. Besides, don’t you want to meet your friends? You can only find them after picking a cultivation spot and getting access to the teleportation system.”

Zac nodded in understanding. He wasn’t really planning on settling this close to the base of the mountain. He could withstand much more powerful energies than this. However, he wasn’t sure he could withstand the influence at the peak. Especially not if there were almost ten thousand ghost temples channeling providence to the main temple at the top. At the same time, Zac was unwilling to settle for a less-than-optimal cultivation location.

“Do I have to spend much time in my manor, or can I travel about?”

“That’s up to you,” Null said. “Traveling usually costs Mana, but you have access to some freebies. And even if your trials run out, you got a good amount of starting Mana. For example, you could stay at the Quarry for almost a year if you wanted to. There are many free places to visit, but they don’t have as much good stuff as the premium environments.”

Zac’s eyes turned toward the lofty peak, the focal point of the whole mountain. Even at this distance, he could feel how much Fate was gathered. The golden cloud wasn’t just a cloud—it was distilled providence. The environment was definitely far better than at the foot of the mountain, but also far more dangerous. That wasn’t just random fate. It was marked by the Dao of Samsara and the Buddhist faith.

Perhaps it was possible if he used his hidden weapon against the influence of Mount Illumination. If Zac could break through with the [Nine Reincarnations Manual] and the [Void Vajra Sublimation], he would improve his resistance against outside influence. However, those two breakthroughs couldn’t just be performed without some preparation.

One day wasn’t enough. Besides, he had things to settle before that, including finding Catheya and Ogras. And if he could just withstand the pressure temporarily, to the point he could settle his home base, he could leave this place and only return after breaking through.

Having formulated a plan, Zac resumed his climb after giving the platform a final look. He’d see how things looked closer to the peak. If he really couldn’t withstand it even for a moment, he’d just have to compromise and settle at the upper reaches and start looking for a Relocation Token.

The minutes passed as Zac climbed higher and higher, passing one empty platform after another. Null stopped speaking up, perhaps to avoid distracting Zac during his ascent. Zac didn’t pepper the guide with questions, instead focusing on the matter at hand. Null joked around about him becoming a baldy, but Zac could tell there was a real risk of that happening.

As far as Zac was concerned, his theory was essentially confirmed after crossing over ten ghost temples. Each one was only visible for a moment before Zac lost his ethereal state, but it was long enough to see the temples act like array flags. Together, they formed a mountain-spanning formation that funneled energy toward the peak.

The mountain didn’t have any restrictions or pressure in the normal sense. The threat came from the Dao itself. The farther up he went, the greater the impartment was, both on Zac and the surroundings. He could shield himself, but just looking at a stone would fill him with errant thoughts of the cycle of creation if he wasn’t careful.

By the time he passed the halfway mark, he occasionally stopped to meditate to regain his balance. Zac didn’t feel like his mind would be swept away, but the environment rekindled the visions of the Remnants. How the carriers had gradually found themselves twisted by the whispers of the splinters, their personalities replaced without them noticing.

The dangers of the Sangha were in the same vein. Their attacks were much harder to notice than getting stabbed or blasted by a fireball. At the same time, Zac was reaffirmed that just staying at the mountain would be extremely useful for tempering his heart. As long as he didn’t lose himself to the ghost temples of Mount Illumination, he’d emerge much stronger from the experience. Zac could understand why cultivators kept flocking to the Sangha, even after knowing of the dangers.

By the time Zac reached the upper reaches of the mountains, he didn’t dare let his mind freely wander. Every stone, every leaf, was an expression of Buddha’s love. If he didn’t focus on his path, he’d risk having his personality subverted. Yet, Zac staunchly kept walking, heading toward the peak. Once he set up shop up there, everything would be fine.

He could stay at the slopes until his heart met the requirements, only heading up when he needed to form his core in a few years.

Eventually, he reached the very edge of the golden cloud. Continuing forward meant entering the focal point of the mountain-spanning array. The energy was so dense in front of him that he could almost grasp it with his hands, and the truths were more than comprehensive enough to keep up.

Seeing it up close only reinforced Zac’s desire to claim the peak. If he could control the area with his accumulated Mana, he’d have unlimited Dao and Energy at his disposal.

The environment was in a league of its own, even compared to the uppermost platforms he’d passed. The peak reminded him of the hidden valley in the Twilight Chasm—a place where the building blocks of the Dao were a tier higher than any place he’d visited on the frontier.

“Are you sure about this?” Null asked. “I know you’re powerful, but that won’t help you here. Remember, this is supposed to be your home. Climbing the mountain is not some trial to conquer.”

“You said Mana helps one form their core,” Zac said. “Do different environments have any impact on that effect?”

“The greater the environment, the greater effect of Mana,” Null confirmed. “As long as you can enforce your path on the peak, you will get at least twice the help from the cosmos compared to where we stand right now. But you need to be alive to enjoy the benefits.”

“Then I have to give it a try.” Zac smiled as a tremendous Dao Field of Conflict crashed out from his body, imposing its harsh truths on Mount Illumination. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

6

A BET ON ONESELF

The air rippled as opposing concepts clashed. The golden cloud originally moved in a lazy rotation around the peak of Mount Illumination, like the wheel of Samsara slowly being turned by the river of Fate.

Zac’s Branch of the War Axe acted like an accelerant, kicking up unstable gusts. Simultaneously, the Dharmic pressure lessened on him as the call of the Sangha grew more chaotic through the filter of Conflict. However, Zac frowned upon seeing the effect was limited. The environment was pushing back.

He ultimately couldn’t compete with a whole mountain, at least not with a Dao Field alone. The energy stabilized, accepting the ferocity of his Dao without being affected by it. Almost as though he were screaming at the clouds like a lunatic.

This wasn’t enough for him to give up. Two more Dao Fields followed the first, and Zac’s eyes lit up upon feeling the energy around him destabilize. Motes of Life, Death, Karma, Order, and a little bit of Time were shaken loose. But not even three superimposed Dao Fields were enough to permanently dismantle the ambient energy, let alone the dense cloud of providence above him.

Perhaps it’d be different if he’d managed to fuse his Dao Fields into an empowered field representing his complete path. For now, the energy around him was locked in a perpetual cycle of breakdown and recovery. It even felt like the process represented the cyclic nature of Samsara. Zac looked at the surroundings with annoyance.

If he were a cultivator, he could have absorbed the Life-attuned pieces, taking out one of the ingredients. Now, he could only watch on as the Samsara Energy broke apart and reformed.

“Can I stay here while you place down the base at the peak?” Zac asked.

“No way,” Null giggled. “That would be cheating. You need to prove yourself strong enough to claim the best region. You need to come with, and you need to stay on the peak during the whole process. But I can tell you that the manor comes with a set of protections. And after it’s built, it’ll immediately start enforcing your path on the surroundings, though you’d need a lot more Mana to reform this place completely.”

“Alright,” Zac nodded, unsurprised by Null shutting him down.

Nothing good came for free.

The question was whether his Dao Fields were enough to withstand the environment inside the golden cloud. It was hard to tell without stepping in. But he didn’t dare enter without enough preparations. He had the [Void Zone] as a final lifeline, but it wasn’t a solution. If he couldn’t even withstand the peak temporarily without cheating, he’d never be able to live here long enough to form a Cosmic Core, even with his planned breakthroughs.

Was there anything he could add to improve his situation?

“Can you eat the Divine Energy?” Zac asked, having Vivi extend her vines out from the protection of the World Ring.

He shook his head and retracted Vivi as soon as she appeared. He sensed Vivi was getting confused by the Dharmic truths. Which meant even plants could be converted and consecrated in this place. He’d have to rely on himself for this one.

Zac spent the next ten minutes centering himself through meditation before decisively stepping into the golden nimbus. He immediately felt a tug on his consciousness as the truths around him skyrocketed, but Zac was prepared.

“Ka!” Zac rumbled as he stomped on the ground, and a shockwave pushed away clouds and Dao alike.

It was the opening step of his [Void Vajra Sublimation], and it allowed him to rebuff the Dharma before it could infect him. Though like an inevitable tide, the golden clouds came crashing back. By that point, Zac had already started adapting to the incredible environment, and he was able to resist the pull.

Zac inwardly breathed out in relief. It felt like an immense weight was bearing down on his heart. Zac wouldn’t dare stay in this environment beyond a day or two, but that was within his levels of acceptance. Between his breakthroughs, further tempering, and the protection of Mana, he was confident he could live in this place in the future.

At the same time, it would become a potent protection against any other guest he might cross over the next couple of years.

Zac resumed his climb, relieved to find the environment didn’t get any worse. Just twenty meters after entering the nimbus, he passed the golden curtain and reached the actual peak. The cloud formed a band, like standing in the eye of a storm, giving him full vantage of the huge platform on the mostly flattened peak.

The area was large enough to accommodate over a thousand normal platforms, indicating the peak hadn’t housed just another small temple. A major complex had once stood here, even if he hadn’t managed to see anything when he stood at the base of the mountain. Now, the whole place was covered in windswept grains of white sand.

No, not windswept. Dao-touched.

Zac’s mind shuddered as his eyes traced the vast array of seemingly random dunes and valleys covering the peak. They formed an incredible pattern whose complexity far surpassed that of his Dao or blueprint. Almost like looking at the actual wheel of reincarnation. Just grasping at the corners of understanding filled Zac with horror and impending doom, and he urgently closed his eyes as he activated [Void Zone].

The feeling disappeared, allowing Zac to breathe out in relief. That had been too close. The enormous pattern had tried imprinting itself on his soul, or perhaps tried to drag it into the cycle of reincarnation. Now, he mostly felt the ancient energy of the Void.

That didn’t mean the danger had passed. The dunes and their pattern were waiting for him after he opened his eyes, and he wasn’t sure the rebuffing effect of his nullification zone would work against the mysterious effect he’d sensed.

A spare axe appeared in his hand, and he sacrificed a small amount of Void Energy to unleash a barrage of fractal leaves in every direction. Only then did he dare open his eyes again, and he was shocked to find a full monastery in front of him. He was currently standing at the edge of a large courtyard that took up half the peak while the courtyards formed a U-shape around him.

The main temple was on the opposite end, while the side buildings were shrines, Zen houses, prayer platforms, and scripture halls. They were all exquisitely crafted but lacked any markers indicating arrays or formations. The temple could just as well have been something you’d see in East Asia pre-Integration.

Even then, the complex had a tremendous presence, as though a Bodhisattva resided in that very temple. In fact, it felt like the monastery was full of monks, even if he couldn’t see anyone. Chants were coming from one side, and he could vaguely sense the smell of burning sandalwood. Altogether, it formed a harmonic atmosphere that fused with the surroundings and the nimbus cloud.

Like the peak had become one with the cosmos.

Thankfully, Zac didn’t feel his perception being influenced, no doubt thanks to his Bloodline Talent. He was more curious about why he saw the temple and why it remained in front of him. Was it because of [Void Zone]? The Bloodline Talent did help him quell any outside interference while calming his heart, but he wasn’t in an ethereal state like before.

Zac confirmed his random attacks had rearranged the sands, and he deactivated his nullification zone a moment later. Immediately, the pressure of the Dharma returned. But without the pattern in the sands to amplify the effect, Zac could handle it by just maintaining his three Dao Fields.

The temples soon disappeared, proving their appearance really was connected to his Bloodline Talent.

“That was weird,” Null commented. “What did you do? It felt like I just lost half a minute.”

“A defensive measure,” Zac muttered, a bit surprised Null had been deactivated by his [Void Zone].

Thankfully, it didn’t look like the big guy upstairs was interested in the matter, so Zac refocused on the task. With the sand rearranged, he thoughtfully looked across the peak. He felt it viable to place his manor on the peak now that he’d ruined the pattern that formed in the sand. But where?

Should he superimpose his manor on the main temple? That should be the end-point of all the energy gathered by the ten thousand ghost temples on the slopes. Or would that create problems without any benefits? Was there a better spot to pick?

Zac slowly walked across the peak, passing through the center, the side temples, and eventually, the main temple. As he walked, he tried to understand the energy flow without letting himself be influenced by the whispers of Samsara. There was certainly something going on here, even if he didn’t sense any threat from the spots taken up by the ghost temples.

Something was wrong. It was incomplete. Eventually, Zac ended up where he started, having made a circle across the peak.

“So, are you happy with this spot, or do you want to keep looking?” Null asked.

“One second,” Zac muttered, frowning as he looked across the sands.

He was at the cusp of understanding, but he wasn’t quite there. He even conjured the monastery several times with [Void Zone] to see if he had missed anything. Then it hit him. Zac’s eyes turned to the left, to the building most likely to be a Library and a Dharmic Repository.

“Truth,” Zac muttered, looking to the Zen temple on the other side. “Balance.”

The Buddhist Sangha was made up of Nine Mountains, representing the seals on the Heavens. Eight Temples, each representing a peak elevating the Dao. Four Oceans for the Eternal Laws. And finally, one paradise, the heart of their belief—the ultimate destiny. Zac’s eyes turned to the main shrine, his instincts telling him it represented the Law of Cosmos. That left one side and one law: Impermanence.

A suitable place for a guest on the mountain.

Zac returned to a spot he’d noticed before, opposite the temple. It wasn’t in the middle nor at the edge. It was one-third to the center from the side where he started. A spot with a slight depression in both energy and truth. He deactivated [Void Zone], letting the temples fade to nothingness.

“Let this spot be the core of my manor.”

“This…” Null hesitated. “Are you sure? It seems like you’re standing on a fault line.”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Null said. “But don’t use your weird skill to knock me out. It’ll make the impartment fail.”

“Alright,” Zac said, and he saw a familiar network of lines spread out from his feet in every direction.

From the ground, a fourth temple rose. A temple wrought from stone, steel, and the colors of his Dao, rather than the red wood of the ghost temples on Mount Illumination. Zac felt like he was raising a banner of defiance in enemy territory, proclaiming his arrival. The response was instantaneous.

The whole mountain shook while the energies rose to unprecedented levels. In just seconds, Zac’s surroundings reached levels of Truth he’d only encountered on extremely rare occasions. Such as when he pushed Void’s Disciple out of the heart of the Dimensional Seed or when the valley of the Twilight Chasm went crazy.

And it kept climbing.

Zac gasped upon seeing both the temples and the immense Buddha appear in the sky, and he groaned upon feeling the radiant sun in its eyes trained on him. He wanted to run away, to activate [Void Zone], but he roused his faltering determination to push back. Instead of depending on his bloodline, he reinforced his heart.

“Ka!” Zac roared again as he started the [Void Vajra Sublimation]. This time, he didn’t stop with the first cycle but kept going toward the next, desperately holding onto his path.

He visualized himself being the Void, only taking what he needed from the Heavens while keeping the rest out. The Dharma proved relentless, replacing the whole cosmos. Zac fought tooth and nail as he went from one stance into another, but his bubble of security kept shrinking while his heart grew exhausted.

Zac took out one Cosmic Crystal after another, and the equivalent energy of a Hegemon’s Cosmic Core was released as Zac crushed them in his hands. Anything to create imperfections in the terrifying pressure bearing down on him. Yet his feeble attempts at disruption only became kindling to the Buddhist storm that had been conjured.

The calm nimbus transformed into a hurricane, dragging more and more energy out of the mountain. The Dao was so condensed it started to affect reality. Millions of golden marks appeared in the air, naturally forming Dharmic Scripture, while celestial phenomena danced over the monastery.

And bad became worse when Zac sensed something else.

A presence unlike the others was forming within the main temple. The phenomenon was similar to a heavenly descent, like a Dharmic Guardian was gradually taking form. The apparitions covering the peaks were just there to herald its arrival. Zac felt despair upon being exposed to the perfection it embodied.

It was game over if that thing was allowed to emerge from the temple.

“It’s done!” Null’s voice echoed in his mind, and Zac almost cried in relief.

Any more and he would have to run for his life, even if it meant giving up on his base. He wasn’t confident that even [Void Zone] could withstand what was coming.

“Exit?” Zac gasped, and a red gate lit up.

Zac didn’t know where it led, and he didn’t care. He jumped through the gate, running for his life.

The deafening hum of the Buddhist Sangha was completely cut off the moment he was teleported. Zac took a shuddering breath, feeling like he’d just escaped divine judgement. That had been way too close.

He’d realized the formation on the peak was incomplete, missing a flag in one of the four cardinal directions. The golden nimbus rotating around the peak was most likely leakage from the imperfection.

Zac figured it was a trial of sorts. To unlock the true potential of Mount Illumination, he would have to complete the mountain-spanning array with his manor. He had been correct, but he hadn’t expected the activation would lead to such a huge reaction. Hopefully, it was just a temporary outburst as the array was realigned, and by the time he returned, the mountain would have calmed down.

For now, Zac was alive and well. If anything, he was even more optimistic about the Perennial Vastness after his brush with death or ordination. Zac couldn’t be certain, but his treasure sense told him there was an opportunity hiding on Mount Illumination. Something amazing was generating all that providence.

Even better, if he could encounter something so shocking at a starting location, what about the high-grade environments you had to pay to visit?

Zac looked around, realizing he was standing in a doorway leading to an eclectic city where each building had its own unique and distinct features. On the opposite side of a twenty-meter-wide road, a cave-like building stood. It didn’t have any windows like most of the buildings on the street, but it had open slits between sets of stalagmite pillars, allowing him to look inside.

Right above the entrance, a complex mesh of red lines formed a raging flame; a Fire-attuned blueprint for a Cosmic Core. Had someone placed their blueprint for the world to see?

“This is…?” Zac asked with a hoarse voice.

“This is Vastness City,” Null said, her voice filled with concern. “Are you okay?”

“I’m good,” Zac smiled. “Was a close one, though.”

“But what about the future?” Null asked. “You’ll have to live there.”

“Don’t worry, that should’ve just been a temporary storm,” Zac said.

“Still…”

“This is a bet on myself,” Zac explained. “If I give up in the face of adversity like that, how can I aim for the peak of cultivation?”

“I know,” Null muttered, the usual exuberance tempered by worry. “But try not to go too crazy. The Perennial Vastness is full of dangerous places. One mistake, and it’s game over. For both of us.”

“Hey, I’d love to stay out of trouble,” Zac wryly smiled. “Unfortunately, trouble has a way of finding me. Besides, that’s the only way to get powerful.”

“Maybe it’s not too late to put in for a transfer…”

7

CHICKENS AND MONKEYS

Zac didn’t rush out to explore Vastness City. He first spent a few minutes just standing in place, letting his heart return to the Void to avoid any lingering or hidden effects from the overpowering Dharmic pressure. He also activated [Void Zone], resetting his state even further.

“What now? How can I find the others?” Zac asked after having grounded himself.

“Two ways,” Null said. “If your friends arrived at the same time as you, they’ll appear here sooner or later if they haven’t already. The city isn’t that big, so go around and look for them. If that fails, you can check the buildings. You should understand the cultivation of your friends, right?”

“Sure,” Zac nodded. “To an extent, at least.”

“Well, look behind you.”

Zac turned around, and he whistled at the domineering building behind him. It wasn’t big, but a lot of detail had gone into its creation, which almost resembled the temple of a war god. The building was mainly made of small golden and black bricks—clearly set in a pattern that reflected his path—alongside steel details.

There was no time to get a good look at his manor back on Mount Illumination, but Zac guessed this house reflected its design. While the building gave off an impressive aura, it was clearly not a defensive structure as there were two large windows, one on each side of the entrance. They showed a small space within, roughly five by five meters.

The interiors had no furniture or items; the only feature was a single door Zac guessed led back to his manor. Null had mentioned he’d get a storefront in Vastness City. It looked like she wasn’t kidding around.

In the middle of each window, an incredibly complex seal was engraved. And while it looked odd, Zac could tell it was a representation of his blueprint. The scene made him frown and look over his shoulders for people spying on him. Thankfully, there was very little foot traffic in his neighborhood, and he only saw a few people walking in the distance.

“Your blueprint is akin to your stamp or calling card in here. You can modify the design if you don’t want to show it,” Null explained. “But you’ll soon find out most people are open with their blueprint.”

Having seen the nearby buildings, Zac knew Null wasn’t making things up. Zac still felt a bit vulnerable, putting his Cosmic Core on open display like that. For now, he infused the building with a mental command. A second later, the two halves of his cores were split into separate engravings. The left window got an Evolutionary Core, and the right an Inexorable Core.

It looked a bit better than the confusing mesh where the Perennial Vastness tried to distill his blueprint onto a two-dimensional surface, and it didn’t give off any potential secrets of his. Having done so, he turned back to the street.

“Do all these buildings belong to other cultivators?” Zac asked, glancing to the fiery-red building opposite his.

“Most of them,” Null confirmed. “If you find one that matches your friends, you can infuse your will into its inner door, and the owner will be notified.”

“Can you take me to any Shadow or Ice and Death-attuned storefronts?” Zac asked, eyes scanning the street for anything reminding him of Ogras or Catheya.

“I don’t have any features like that,” Null said. “You’ll just have to walk around. But since you came together, you should appear in the same section of the city. If you really can’t find them, there are usually people who keep track of storefronts, including new arrivals.”

“What’s up with the storef—” Zac said, but he lost his train of thought upon seeing two cultivators walk past him.

It wasn’t the fact they were some humanoid species he’d never seen before, but rather their discussion that drew Zac’s attention.

“The Grand Firmament Coalition is harassing that black-eyed yin creature again,” one of the two said. “This is the second month.”

“She’s unlucky to run into them right at the start,” the other shrugged. “An undead should have known better than causing a scene.”

Zac frowned and walked over to them, leaking some of his aura so they’d take him seriously. “Excuse me, where can I find this undead?”

“A newcomer? Perhaps an acquaintance of the young lord?” one of the two said with a respectful nod. “They’re not far from here, close to the sixty-eighth.”

“Thank you,” Zac nodded and walked away.

“I’m on it,” Null said before Zac needed to ask, and a guidance beam appeared in Zac’s field of vision.

“What’s the Grand Firmament Coalition?” Zac asked as he sped down the roads, the buildings around him turning to a blur as he only focused on the guiding line.

“No idea,” Null said. “Probably some temporary alliance of guests. As I said, some people go at it alone while others team up. Some do it because they’re weak and can’t deal with the environments of the Perennial Vastness. But it’s also common for top-tier guests to form factions that can help them complete harder yet more lucrative missions.”

Zac sighed. The Grand Firmament Coalition was probably the second type of group, going by that humanoid’s comment about a ‘young lord.’ It looked like Catheya had found herself in a troublesome situation the moment she arrived. Was it because of her situation with the Undead Empire, or was she just unlucky?

Hopefully, he wouldn’t be late to help his companion this time. Zac pushed some Cosmic Energy into his legs, but he almost stumbled upon feeling an intense resistance that prevented him from activating [Earthstrider].

“What’s going on!” Zac swore. “I’m restricted.”

“Rotating Cosmic Energy is blocked in Vastness City to keep order,” Null explained. “There are exceptions, though. Look to the left.”

Zac glanced over and spotted a number of people standing at one of the major crossings. There seemed to be a huge circle lined by a protective array. Inside, two warriors were furiously trying to break open each other’s barriers, blood covering the ground. The scene proved that the blueprint-based barriers Null showed him earlier weren’t infallible, and his worry for Catheya only increased.

Thankfully, Null was right. When rushing, it took Zac less than a minute to reach the street the guiding light indicated. Unfortunately, there was a small crowd ahead, proving something was happening. Zac couldn’t see exactly what was going on, but after leaping into the air, he caught a glimpse of a scene that ignited a fire in his chest.

Of Catheya being surrounded by a dozen people, her aura erratic with ichor trailing down her ear and mouth. A few of her enemies were already out for the count, barely standing with ice covering their bodies. But there were still six with their weapons drawn at her. Just as Zac had leapt into the air, he’d seen her trying to veer away, only to be prevented from escaping by a human blockade.

She wasn’t standing inside one of those battle circles but rather on a wide street, which meant she couldn’t use any escape skills to get away. And being a mage, she was clearly at a disadvantage using just her body and Daos. All the while, over a hundred people egged the attackers on, considering her situation a game.

For six years, Zac had restrained himself, hiding away in his cave as he worked on his foundations. Now, it felt like a seal had snapped, and cascading waves of killing intent roiled from his body as Miasma replaced Cosmic Energy. Even the splinters locked in the depths of his mind stirred, singing with joy as Zac’s murderous intent became so condensed, it almost took on a physical appearance.

It didn’t matter who these Grand Firmament Coalition were or what factions out in the Multiverse backed the ‘young lord.’ The scene in front of him dragged out too many bad memories, and this time he was neither too late nor too weak to make a difference. He hadn’t planned on staying low in either case, and these people could serve as a warning to the rest of the Perennial Vastness.

A warning that blood would flow when his companions were targeted.

With each step, it felt like he was coming alive after years of slumber, the ichor in his body pumping with vigor. This was it, the true self that the Integration of Earth had awakened. His path was not one of secluding himself in cultivation chambers or staying hidden to avoid trouble. Conflict was at the heart of the road he’d chosen, and he let his Dao course freely through his body, becoming one with his purpose.

The air groaned, strained from his burgeoning momentum as he stepped forward. [Love’s Bond] appeared on his back, and the metallic clatter of the fetters echoed through the streets. The links were forged with Pure Death, which made their collisions sound like the death knells of a funeral procession.

“What the—” one of the onlookers muttered as he turned around, his eyes widening in alarm.

He stumbled out of the way just as Zac’s billowing killing intent crashed into the crowd like a tsunami. The shouts and jeers died out, replaced by an oppressive silence as the crowd parted like a sea. The scene came into full view once more. Catheya controlling six floating ice shards, facing off against a swordsman while the rest blocked any path of escape.

His anger reached another level upon seeing they were essentially toying with her, and he shot forward.

“Ah! Wait!” Null’s voice echoed in his mind, but Zac could barely hear the guide over the roaring buzz of his killing intent.

His whole being screamed for blood, and he wouldn’t be denied.

“Who are you?” the apparent leader shouted upon noticing Zac’s entrance, but the only answer forthcoming was a gleaming axe crashing toward his head.

Four chains simultaneously targeted the others still in fighting condition, each link targeting a vital spot. Eruptions of Dao rippled around him as six barriers sprung up to protect the defenders, and Zac frowned in annoyance upon feeling over 80% of his strength being sapped away as he tried to split his target’s head in two.

The light emitted from the barrier was almost blinding, its squirming patterns drenching him in a yellowish gleam. The resistance was tremendous, but just 20% of his strength was enough to kill most Peak E-grade cultivators. Unfortunately, the resistance slowed his opening move too much, narrowly providing his target with enough time to react. He desperately backpedaled as [Black Death] cut down just half a hand from his nose.

“Stop!” the leader screamed.

Unfortunately for him, they weren’t standing inside one of the dueling circles. He couldn’t use movement skills, and his attributes were nowhere near Zac’s. If not for the protection of his blueprint shield, the first swing would have already killed him. Zac easily kept pace, his anger only growing after failing to kill a single one of his targets.

The chains had also been rebuffed, and he could only use them to restrict while he dealt with the leader. At first, Zac planned to push toward the inexorable end where his axe found flesh, but he spotted something just as he was about to strike. Wasn’t that wrong?

Zac didn’t know why, but he felt something was off about a few of the runes among the hundreds of thousands that made up the yellow barrier around the leader of the Grand Firmament Coalition. As luck would have it, one was right at level with his throat.

“Stop! We surr—” the man screamed, but his sentence died out as his head flew into the air.

The silence was deafening. Zac now stood over a headless corpse, blood trickling down the edge of his axe to join the pool spreading around him. The spectators looked at him like he was a madman, everyone afraid to speak up lest they’d be targeted next. A few were already distancing themselves, while others were too afraid to even move. Zac had seen similar expressions countless times, and he didn’t bother with them after confirming no one was planning to step in and block him.

His heart did not so much as ripple as he turned to the remaining cultivators. He’d kept up the pressure with [Loves Bond] while dealing with the leader, but the chains weren’t powerful enough to kill enemies through the pathbound barriers. The shields just sapped out too much strength.

Even if the piercing strikes of his armament had the strength to pierce the barrier, the remaining force was so weak that even a Middle E-grade cultivator could rebuff it. And the people who had arrived in the Perennial Vastness weren’t useless. Even the weakest among those coming to this place were renowned talents or at least scions with impressive backgrounds who could source the coveted Perennial Vastness Tokens.

After all, the Perennial Vastness and the System only sent a few million tokens out every Cosmic Gallery to be shared amongst innumerable Peak E-grade cultivators. Zac still felt dealing with these five shouldn’t prove too difficult after this initial kill, unless they all fled in a different direction, but a sudden searing heat on his wrist made him stop in place.

‘What is it?’ Zac asked in his mind while maintaining his abyssal glare.

“Don’t attack them! You can’t just kill people in Vastness City!” Null cried. “Right now, you broke the rules, resulting in mutual destruction. Look at your Status Screen.”

Zac opened his Status Screen and almost swore upon seeing his Mana.

[Mana: 1,978]

In one go, he’d lost over 500 Mana, more than 20% of his total. The scene almost made him queasy, and he realized he couldn’t continue. There were still five people remaining, not counting those Catheya had already dealt with. If he killed them all, wouldn’t he run out of Mana? If that happened, then what? Would he be kicked out of the Perennial Vastness?

Even then, Zac didn’t regret it in the slightest. These people needed a reminder they couldn’t just act as they wanted, hiding behind the rules while harassing others.

“You lost 10% of both your and your opponent’s total Mana for illegally attacking and killing that guy,” Null groaned. “What kind of lunatic starts killing people the moment they arrive? This is a Green Zone. There are rules. This wasn’t a death match. It was a duel for resources!”

‘Undead will die if they run out of Miasma, even if the enemies don’t land a killing blow,’ Zac grunted, still angry upon seeing Catheya’s pitiful expression.

“That’s…” Null hesitated. “Well, that’s true. No rules are perfect. But you still can’t just kill these people. That won’t save your friend.”

Zac had too little information. While climbing Mount Illumination, he’d been fully focused on solving the mystery of the ghost temples while protecting his Dao Heart. And the moment he arrived in Vastness City, he was distracted by the news of Catheya. Now, he was facing down a whole group of cultivators, unsure of his options.

The situation wouldn’t wait for him to get a full run-down from Null, leaving Zac at an impasse. Thankfully, Catheya was quick on the uptake.

“You losers want to keep playing?” Catheya laughed as she walked up to Zac. “My husband will accept any of your challenges. I’d like to see how you deal with him. In fact, you can bring the whole coalition if you dare. We could use a couple Revenant servants for our stay.”

“He’s a newcomer. He doesn’t have unlimited Mana,” one of them stuttered, but he shuddered when another wave of killing intent drowned him and his companions.

“Maybe not, but isn’t the Grand Firmament Coalition planning a final excursion to the Hyr’Zen Tundra? No penalties there, and lots of places to hide.” Catheya smiled. “Or do you want to stay and fight?”

The group had already lost their fighting spirit long before, and Catheya’s nudge was all they needed to turn tail and run, even carrying their semi-frozen companions so they could move faster. After a pointed glare, the crowd dispersed, leaving Zac and Catheya in front of a building clearly belonging to her.

Ice and black metal formed a beautiful storefront in gothic design, with a pitch-black ice blueprint hovering over the door frame.

“Are you okay?” Zac asked, his attention back to his old companion.

Catheya surreptitiously looked around as she dragged him into her storefront, which was already decorated with black ice furniture. A wave of her hand made the windows tint, and her aura stabilized.

“How can I be okay?” Catheya huffed as she lightly slapped his chest. “You scared away the little fishies.”

Zac looked on with incomprehension as she wiped the ichor from her cheek. A few seconds later, one wouldn’t have been able to tell she’d just been in a fight.

“It was fake?” he blurted.

“Did you think those guys could do me in? I was just after their Mana,” Catheya glared, but her scowl soon turned into a radiant smile. “Still, your display was worth it. Who doesn’t like the dashing prince coming to the rescue?”

“I—” Zac said, losing his train of thought as two arms snaked around him.

“I’ve missed you.” A content hum reached him from below as Catheya nestled herself against his chest.

“I missed you too,” Zac sighed, enclosing her in his arms. “I’ve been worried about you over the past years.”

Neither moved until a disgusted snort echoed through the room.

“Is this my lot for the next couple of years? Watching the springtime of others?” Ogras swore from within Zac’s shadows, startling both Zac and Catheya. “Shameless couple.”

8

THE RULEBOOK

“You were here already?” Zac exclaimed while Catheya looked around warily.

“Who?”

“You know my friend from the Tower of Eternity,” Zac explained.

“He’s got a token as well? How?” Catheya muttered as she looked around. “And why are you skulking around in the shadows?”

“I figured it would be useful if at least one of us didn’t create a large number of enmities the moment we arrived,” Ogras said, still not emerging from wherever he hid. “Seeing as I could sneak inside by leaving a mark on your husband, I think it’s best I remain hidden.”

A few black veins spread across Catheya’s face in what Zac had learned was akin to blushing as she took a step back. “What a pervert, spying on others.”

“Hey, I have no choice. I promised his other wife to keep an eye out,” Ogras snickered. “I don’t want to get incinerated.”

“What!” Catheya exclaimed, looking at Zac with shock. “Who?”

“Ignore him. He’s just messing around. He’s talking about another friend of mine,” Zac said with a roll of his eyes.

“Who’s this woman?” Catheya asked, completely ignoring Zac.

“Fire and ice. How poetic,” Ogras answered with a laugh, then buttoned up upon feeling Zac’s killing intent spread through the small storefront. “Alright, alright. Geeze.”

“You’ve been busy over these past years,” Catheya commented with a raised brow.

“I have literally been sitting alone in a cave working on my breakthrough,” Zac grunted.

“I’m just kidding.” Catheya laughed. “Don’t you think I know what kind of cultivation blockhead you are by now?”

“Whatever,” Zac said with some helplessness. “Is this place safe to talk?”

“These storefronts have no protections, except for the gateway to our manors. Anyone could eavesdrop unless you watch out,” Chatheya explained. “I’m surprised your friend managed to elude my defenses. Maybe they’re not as thorough as I thought.”

“Can we sit down and talk somewhere? I still don’t understand all the rules and just lost over five hundred Mana. If possible, I’d prefer to avoid doing that again,” Zac said. “Can we visit your base? Shouldn’t be anyone to eavesdrop there.”

“That might not be a great idea now that you’ve brought your friend. My place is a bit dangerous for non-Draugr,” Catheya said.

“Are all places like that?” Zac asked curiously. “I almost got myself killed setting up my base.”

“It’s usually like that if you get more than 2,000 starting Mana,” Catheya nodded while taking out a Healing Pill. “Turns out those who perform well from the start have a perk; better starting options, though those places are all pretty dangerous. My environment is doubly so for your friend. Let’s go to the incensary instead. It’s on our way, in either case.”

She followed up by eating the pill and crushing another to let its medicinal aroma douse her, making it seem she had just used some powerful healing treasure to recover quickly from her supposed internal wounds.

“On our way where?” Zac asked as they emerged from her empty store.

“The Mission Hall,” Catheya smiled. “You have good timing. New quests will be released in a few hours. We can catch up and get you oriented before then.”

“Sounds good,” Zac nodded, but he stopped upon seeing the headless corpse lying not far ahead.

No one had dared claim the body or its treasures, and Zac wordlessly walked over and put both head and body into his Corpse Sack—the first addition in years.

“Some improvement, at least,” Catheya smiled. “Reattaching a head so cleanly cut isn’t that hard for a talented Lich. The problem comes when you destroy their brains like you did in the Twilight Ocean. No rot, either. Please make sure you remember that during our stay here. Every single guest in the Perennial Vastness has the makings of a top-tier Revenant.”

“Still as practical as ever,” Zac smiled. “This incensary. Is it an actual shop or some other person’s storefront?”

“A small number of the buildings in Vastness City are empty, much like in the Tower of Eternity. However, you have to pay Mana to rent additional real estate, so most don’t bother. The Undead Empire has one such shop because we need a place to gather and organize, considering we’re a small and exposed minority here,” Catheya explained as she led them through the streets.

“I can’t believe we got a shop as part of the guest package. People here are so free they’re setting up stores?” Ogras asked from the shadows, clearly following them somehow.

“Many come with instructions from their elders to trade, so they have to even if they want to focus on their breakthrough.” Catheya smiled. “Others offer various services as a way to earn Mana. Most simply use their storefront to showcase their blueprints in hopes of getting a challenge.”

“What’s that?” Zac asked with confusion.

“Didn’t you go over the rules before visiting the city?” Catheya asked.

“As I said, I built my base in kind of a dangerous place.” Zac coughed. “I jumped through the teleporter the moment it was erected, and then I heard about your situation from some passersby before I could learn about all the rules.”

Catheya laughed. “You haven’t changed at all. It also explains why you tried to kill those people without challenging them. Still, it had a decent effect. It should make our life easier when contending for better missions. Besides, I doubt I would be able to milk those guys for much longer in either case.”

“What are the rules?” Zac asked.

“One moment,” Catheya said as she stopped. “We’re almost there.”

Their destination was a small tavern, and two small Unholy Beacons stood at its entrance, clearly indicating it was for the undead. They created a haze around the door, and Zac could tell the whole building was filled with Miasma rather than Cosmic Energy. He’d already seen that the Perennial Vastness didn’t bother specifically accommodating the undead in Vastness City, so leaving the Cosmic Energy of the outside environment felt like getting out of the rain.

Catheya nodded slightly at two Revenants sitting in a corner before heading deeper into the building. Zac’s brows rose upon seeing the sigil of the Abyssal Shores on the door Catheya opened. Inside, a private dining room waited. Both Catheya and Zac installed a set of isolation arrays, followed by a shroud of shadows covering the walls.

“This place is safe. Relatively speaking,” Catheya said.

“This environment,” a disgusted voice echoed out as Ogras appeared from the corner of the room.

“I thought this would be our honeymoon, yet you’ve brought a chaperone?” Catheya pouted at Zac.

“With a bunch of Undead Monarchs plotting behind my back, I have to bring my resident schemer around,” Zac smiled.

“I didn’t expect the elders to be such troublemakers,” Catheya sighed. “For what it’s worth, I do think the Umbri’Zi were sincere in their desire to bring you into the fold until things got complicated. As for the later arrivals, I don’t know.”

“It’s fine,” Zac said. “I’m not delusional. I know I’m not as important to them as an Eternal Heritage. I’ll be careful. Hopefully, we’ll emerge stronger on the other end. Maybe we can go back to the original agreement with the Umbri’Zi after the Azol and Reavers have left with whatever they came for.

“More importantly, are you okay? We got an odd message from the Undead Empire just before entering and were worried something had happened to you.”

“Well, I think I was played for a fool,” Catheya wryly smiled. “But for a moment there, I thought they were about to kill me over my seal.”

Zac listened with a frown as Catheya shared her experiences, from exploring the Million Gates Territory under Tavza An’Azol. An image of a competent but cold leader soon emerged in Zac’s mind, someone who always chose the option that would have the greatest odds of completing the mission, even if it meant losses in her ranks.

She had cut through a large section of the Million Gates Territory with the precision of a surgeon, leaving not a stone unturned in her hunt for remnants of the Limitless Empire. Eventually, Catheya reached the end, where she had been filled with a sense of impending doom and opted to flee on a stolen vessel while Tavza was occupied inside a fractured realm.

“No wonder they sent that message,” Zac grimaced.

“I’m so sorry about creating such a mess,” Catheya said. “I felt like a trapped animal. I had to get out.”

“That’s okay. Better safe than sorry,” Zac nodded.

“I don’t understand,” Ogras commented from the side. “If it’s as you said, it doesn’t make much sense for her to kill you. Our side, or rather Zac, has been abundantly clear about how important you are for the cooperation. The value of moving a lower seal to a subordinate can’t compare to the alliance with Zac. Are you sure a few years aboard the Cosmic Vessel didn’t just drive you a bit stir-crazy?”

Zac frowned at the demon, who shrugged back.

“That’s… something I’ve been wondering myself,” Catheya sighed. “It was so clear back then. I saw one hint after another and pieced them together into a conspiracy about to do me in. But just days after I stole the ship, I felt the memories were a bit odd. Since I’d already pulled the trigger, I still fled here the moment I could activate the token.”

“What do you think now?” Zac asked.

“After two months here… I think I was played, for some reason,” Catheya sighed. “A curse, an illusion, or something similar. I’m not sure if my actions were what they were hoping for or if they were aiming for something else. Perhaps they wanted me to attack Tavza instead of fleeing, but capturing that Kan’Tanu vessel threw a wrench in the works? Or maybe they just wanted to instill me with suspicions toward Tavza, which I would transmit to you? I’m not sure.”

“What a mess,” Zac muttered. “Well, what do you think? Can the cooperation continue?”

“I think so,” Catheya said. “They have strict orders from the Primo himself. Any schemes between and within the Divine Races must be within bounds, not threatening the mission. And with you and your followers drastically increasing the odds of success, they can’t harm you. I know the promised Edict is real, though it doesn’t guarantee your safety. The Primo is rarely a hands-on leader. His existence is more of a guarantee against outside pressure.

“As for who you’re better off aligning with, I don’t know. Tavza is Draugr, but I saw her sacrifice thousands of subordinates to scour as many pocket realms as quickly as possible, without even blinking. If she believed sacrificing you would secure the mission, she’d probably do it. Kator seems open and forthright, making friends among the locals and lower races. But I can smell trouble from him.”

“If you were played, he’s a top suspect, proving he can be scheming,” Ogras added.

“We knew they consider us as tools to help further their goals inside the inheritance.” Zac shrugged. “We simply have to get stronger quickly, so we get too troublesome to double-cross.”

“You might need Tavza if you want to find the best treasures inside the inheritance,” Catheya said after some thought. “She’s an expert on the Limitless Empire. I hear she owns whole heritages dating back to that era. If someone can unearth any secrets in there, it’s her.”

“She’s an expert on the Limitless Empire?” Zac was surprised to hear that. “Why? The Undead Empire shouldn’t have much to do with them, right?”

“No,” Catheya said. “Only the Founders among the Five Races had any contact with the Limitless Empire before the System was born. It was just a private interest of hers, where she studied ancient arrays and fused them with the heritage of the Abyssal Shores. I think that’s partly why she was picked as one of the candidates.”

“What about the undead in here?” Ogras asked. “Are they involved in this?”

“Well, not those who have been here more than a decade,” Catheya said. “For the rest, I can’t tell. The undead here have an organization of their own, which I’ve stayed clear of for now. Either case, I’m strong enough to earn a decent amount of Mana without teaming up. I’m not forced to join like those people you saw earlier.”

“Anyway, what’s going on with those humans, and why couldn’t I kill that guy?” Zac asked.

“There are restrictions in place,” Catheya said. “In Vastness City, you either have to challenge or be challenged to fight a proper battle. Just going around attacking people will cost Mana.”

“There’s more freedom in the various realms, though,” Ogras added, snorting when he saw Zac’s surprised look. “What? I’m not like you. I read the rulebook before coming out the gate swinging.”

“Well,” Zac coughed.

“Simply put, all guests have a tiering depending on their Mana levels,” Catheya said. “Every 10,000 Mana increases your echelon by one. So, we’ll become first-echelon cultivators when we reach 10,000 total accumulated Mana. For now, we’re Pre-echelon, or untiered as most call it.”

“What does echelons matter, except the monthly cost?” Zac asked.

“Most of the best realms have echelon-level restrictions in place,” Catheya said. “It’s also important for duels. If you challenge another untiered cultivator, they can’t decline. If they do, they’ll be hit with a penalty of 10% of their Mana.”

“Conversely, higher-echelon cultivators can just ignore your challenges,” Ogras added. “Ensures we can’t just find a bunch of the top people and steal their Mana.”

“Actually, you can’t even challenge people more than one echelon above you. You sort of have to prove yourself,” Catheya explained.

“And I’ll get Mana if I win a duel?” Zac asked.

“Sure, one hundred Mana per victory,” Catheya said. “Taken out of the pocket of the loser.”

“Only one hundred?” Zac grimaced.

“Also, you can only issue ten binding challenges a month,” Catheya said. “After that, your target can just say no without sacrificing Mana. You can still be challenged and accept as many challenges as you want. The guides are keeping watch, though. Any Mana-laundering schemes will result in steep penalties.”

“That’s…” Zac frowned.

With such rules in place, there was simply no way he’d be able to snatch a bunch of Mana quickly and start working on his core.

“There are bounties, though,” Catheya added. “I didn’t think you’d be able to get any based on your skill set. But I may have been wrong after seeing you thrash that guy.”

“What?” Zac asked, and Ogras looked over curiously as well.

“Do you remember what happened back there? Your first swing met powerful resistance, but your second one moved much quicker and went straight for his throat. Why?”

Zac thought back to that feeling. “The resistance from that barrier was pretty strong. But I felt some of the patterns were weak, like a loophole in an array. After I targeted that weakness, the resistance was a lot lower.”

“That’s a bounty and why people showcase their cores on their storefronts. We’re just E-grade cultivators, and our understanding of the Dao and Energy is ultimately flawed. Even if our elders give us a blueprint, we still need to modify them to fit our pathways and Dao. Most people arrive with minor imperfections to their blueprints. Some even have failed schematics with glaring problems.”

“Imperfections that others can point out and get awarded?” Ogras surmised.

“Exactly,” Catheya said. “If you hadn’t broken the rules, your strike would have given you a bonus of between 10 and 100 Mana for finding an imperfection. The guy you hit would get the weakness marked on his Dao Tapestry in his manor, allowing him to start fixing it. This way, people will emerge with much better cores than if they just worked on it alone.”

“Why don’t people fix their weaknesses before?” Zac asked. “Like asking their elders.”

“Many don’t have elders to fix the mistakes,” Ogras shrugged. “No D-grade force would have a heritage that can lead you to a perfect core. I doubt even most C-grade forces on the frontier would. Seems most of our Monarchs manage to take that final step thanks to lucky encounters rather than strong foundations.”

“Others have elders who don’t have the understanding required to perfect the blueprints. Even small differences in paths can result in wildly different Cosmic Cores. What is perfect in the eyes of the elder may be riddled with problems for the descendants,” Catheya added. “It’s also quite uncommon for elders to get so involved with their disciples. It harms them in the long run.

“If they don’t find the answers to their path themselves, they have no chance of reaching Monarchy. That’s how established factions work. They raise one generation after another, hoping someone will stumble onto opportunities and inspirations that will let them climb to a stage where they can contribute to the clan or sect.”

The sentiment echoed what Iz told Zac before, though Iz’s vantage was quite a bit higher, even mentioning things like Earth Immortals.

“This is also what makes the Perennial Vastness so unique,” Catheya continued. “Any imperfections you find will gradually be improved by the Mana you accumulate. You can even spend some of it to speed up that process, so you don’t have to wait decades.”

“So almost like the energy from that place,” Ogras whistled before his face scrunched together. “Damn, did that mean we wasted our epiphanies on something we could have gotten here?”

“I don’t think it was a waste,” Zac said. “I would never have spotted that weakness if not for the epiphanies or all that lake water.”

“The what?” Catheya said with a blank stare, and Zac explained the situation about the Lost Plane and his encounter inside the Void Star.

“That’s just like you,” Catheya scoffed. “And I don’t suppose you saved any for your beautiful friends?”

“Girl, don’t even think about that,” Ogras snorted. “I took a dip in that water myself, and I almost had my mind twisted and Dao deviated. I don’t understand how this monster could bathe in it like it was some sort of elixir.”

“He’s pretty annoying that way,” Catheya agreed.

“Finally, someone who understands my plight!” Ogras said with a long-suffering look.

“Whatever,” Zac groaned. “So what’s the plan if I can’t just go around and rob people of their Mana?”

“You can,” Ogras grinned. “You just have to head to the Red Zones.”

9

MISSIONS

Null had called Vastness City a Green Zone, which meant the Red Zone Ogras mentioned probably was a region with far laxer rules. As expected, Catheya confirmed his guess.

“Green Zones, like this city, disallow killing even during duels. There are a bunch of other restrictions, which is why I had to trick those fools earlier into challenging me one after another. For someone like you, you can just pick ten unlucky people and beat them up every month. But after that, your opponents can say no.

“In Orange Zones, you don’t need to bother with duels. If you see someone in your or an adjacent echelon, you’re free to attack them. If you win, you get Mana like normal, including points for bounties. But if you kill them, you get nothing and instantly get thrown out of the zone. Deaths are honestly pretty rare unless there’s a grudge.”

“And within red there are no rules?” Zac asked.

“Pretty much,” Catheya nodded. “Anyone you see, you can attack, no matter what echelon they have. That goes the other way, though. People with huge repositories of Mana can bully newcomers there. Apparently, the effect is not limited to a simple shield when you’ve gathered enough Mana. You release something akin to a Dao Field, restricting your opponents while empowering yourself. Furthermore, you can fight to the death in Red Zones and get full payment for a win, so it’s quite dangerous.”

“Then why would anyone go to those kinds of places?” Zac asked.

“Why does anyone ever take risks?” Catheya smiled. “All the best stuff is in the Red Zones, be it opportunities for the Core Formation or missions.”

“I read the booklet while you were scamming those guys earlier. My idea was to beat up ten weaklings in the city before heading to an Orange Zone to continue hunting until I gained enough Mana to move to the Red Zones,” Ogras interjected. “Or is that inefficient?”

“Orange Zones are usually middle-tier zones and up. Meaning you need to pay between 25 and 100 Mana a day to stay there,” Catheya said. “And with the size of this place in contrast to the number of participants…”

“Might be hard just to break even,” Ogras frowned.

“Especially if you consider the fact that not everyone you encounter will be someone you can fight. Those who dare visit Orange Zones alone are usually pretty confident in their strength. The same thing’s true for your idea to find ten weaklings to duel in Vastness City. There’s always a higher mountain, and someone stronger might target you. For most, just coming out ahead from a month’s ten duels is considered pretty good.

“Even worse, all battles have a winner and a loser. The defender will be crowned the winner if neither side can eke out a clear advantage. That’s how I kept stealing Mana against those people before,” Catheya smiled.

“How is advantage measured?” Zac asked.

“The guides are judges,” Catheya shrugged.

“So hunting people for Mana is easier said than done,” Zac muttered.

“The majority get most of their Mana from completing missions,” Catheya said. “Though there are occasionally opportunities to go all-out. For example, if you keep track of the larger coalitions, you might figure out which zones they plan on exploring. That way, you can hunt them from the shadows. There are also the events.”

“Events?” Ogras asked, the orientation book appearing in his hands. “Didn’t read anything about that.”

“It’s officially considered another form of mission, but timed public ones,” Catheya explained.

“So, what is it?”

“With so many environments, there is often something happening. Treasures being born, calamities, beast tides, and so on. These automatically generate time-sensitive missions; everyone gets a notification through their guides. I’ve been here two months, and I’ve already gotten three, though that’s a bit higher than normal.”

“Are these quests lucrative?” Ogras asked with gleaming eyes.

“Not all of them,” Catheya said. “But some events are amazing treasures being born. You get to keep the item while earning Mana for snatching it and winning the event.”

“And there’ll be a bunch of little bounties running around looking for the item,” Ogras said, his smile widening.

“Exactly,” Catheya nodded. “Two of the limited missions I’ve seen were in Green Zones, but one was in an Orange Zone. I heard over three thousand people participated.”

“Was that how you got in trouble with those Grand Firmament guys?” Zac asked curiously. “Did you beat them up during the event?”

“I wish,” Catheya laughed. “I didn’t even dare go to that trial. It was just a few days after I arrived, and I didn’t know enough to gauge the danger… I got in trouble with those Dreamers a few days later.

“It all started because of the Mission Hall. Only one person or group can take on a specific mission at a time. I found a very lucrative one perfect for my Daos. It paid well and was related to Death and Ice. Turned out it was a repeating mission a few leaders in the Firmament Alliance had claimed as their own. When confronted, I told them to eat rocks and went and took on the quest anyway.”

“And they started to harass you as a result,” Zac said.

“Two months now,” Catheya nodded. “But I made almost a thousand Mana from it since I made sure to struggle just enough for them to keep coming back. Their meddling led to me missing out on the first pick of the quests released once a month, but I think it was a pretty good trade.”

“You have to head into town monthly if you want to accept missions?” Zac asked.

“You’ll also be able to get missions from your manor, but they appear three hours later,” Catheya explained. “The best missions are usually snatched by that point unless they have some huge risks or requirements.”

“So the owner of this place forces people out of their burrows if they want the good tasks,” Ogras snickered, glancing at Zac. “Planning on getting the duels out of the way? Should be a lot of targets on the streets soon.”

“Might as well, right?” Zac agreed. “But how do I know which people are in the same echelon as me?”

“I can help,” Null’s voice appeared in his mind while Catheya said something of the same effect. “If you focus on someone, I can tell you their echelon. Only in Green and Orange Zones, though.”

“Sounds fairly straightforward. What kind of stuff do we need to do on the missions?” Zac asked.

“Some are simple things like outer sect members would have to do. Harvest crops, maintain arrays, inspect various facilities,” Catheya said. “Those have little dangers and low rewards. Most quests are more like what the two of us did in Twilight Ocean.”

“What?” Zac asked. “Blow things up?”

“In a sense,” Catheya laughed. “A Revenant who’s been here for three decades explained it to me. The whole Perennial Vastness could be considered a laboratory where thousands of experiments are running simultaneously. The Perennial Vastness is testing various theories by reforging whole worlds based on certain concepts.

“We’re just sent inside to ensure nature sticks to the plan. For example, the mission that caused my enmity with the Grand Firmament Coalition was inside a glacier that had been infested by weird Death-attuned critters. Their bodies stained the ice, and they dug paths that impacted energy flow. The mission was to find and eradicate the creatures, while any tunnel I sealed provided bonus Mana.”

“And that was better than most quests?” Zac asked with confusion.

“The critters had spread across a huge mountain range,” Catheya said. “I only rooted up a couple of outer burrows and avoided the main hive, and I still earned just over 3,000 Mana in 18 days. Even if 100 people worked together, they’d have their hands full. It was a perfect quest for larger groups. I just didn’t understand I was taking the food out of the mouth of others.”

“What! 3,000 Mana in under three weeks? So we can earn over 70,000 Mana a year with these kinds of quests?” Ogras exclaimed, his eyes veritably burning.

“You’re forgetting the cost of staying in the special environment,” Catheya said. “That glacier was a Red Zone costing over 100 Mana a day, so I was left with less than 1,000 Mana in profits. But that’s still very good. Some barely break even, while a few unlucky ones take a loss by accepting a quest they couldn’t complete.”

“Even one thousand is good if you add on the duels and bounties,” Ogras agreed. “Should we head out? We can’t miss out on the good stuff if we want to finish everything in a decade.”

“We’ll figure out the rest on the go,” Zac said. “Let’s try to pick a quest together the first time and then take things as they come?”

“Calm down,” Catheya laughed. “The Mission Hall is only five minutes from here, and we’re still a few hours off. No one will go over there for a while longer. Let’s just relax and plan our next steps. Why don’t you tell me about your experiences since we parted in the Twilight Ocean? I’ve only gotten small scraps of information, and I’ve been dying to know.”

Zac was a bit antsy, but he sat back down and retold his experiences, from entering the Void and getting trapped by a Voidcatcher to eventually staying on Earth for a few years. They also planned a few tactics for getting as much Mana as possible, from targeting alliances like the Grand Firmament Coalition to setting up alliances of their own.

After two hours passed, Catheya scoffed upon seeing both Zac’s and Ogras’ eyes continuously dart to the door.

“Alright, you two. Let’s just go. People should start appearing about now because of the grace period.”

The grace period was another restriction inside the Green Zones. You could reject challenges for one hour after being defeated in a duel. If you won, however, you could still be challenged again. It was a small protection for the weaker guests, so they didn’t lose all their accumulated Mana every time they visited the city. As long as they accomplished their tasks within the hour, they’d lose 100 Mana plus a small blueprint bounty at most.

Ogras returned to the shadows while Zac and Catheya leisurely walked out of the incensary together, making sure to be spotted by at least a few of the undead patrons. Zac wanted his appearance to be spread to any potential spies as soon as possible so they’d know he’d already met with Catheya. Hopefully, that would lessen the risk of any further attempts on her.

Catheya led him toward the center of the city. The streets were by no means heavily trafficked by this point, but there were far more pedestrians compared to the occasional passersby of before. Zac occasionally had Null divulge people’s echelons, and the vast majority were either untiered or belonged to the first echelon.

“I won’t cause panic if I challenge someone, right?” Zac asked to confirm.

“As long as you don’t overdo it,” Catheya smiled. “Just break through their defenses, hitting weaknesses if possible. You can lightly maim, but what’s the point if it’s just strangers and for Mana?”

Zac nodded in agreement, then flashed over to a human wearing a dress sparkling like diamonds. She wasn’t hiding her aura and was clearly a notch stronger than the average first-echelon cultivator. Of course, that didn’t matter to someone like Zac, especially after hearing that the barriers weren’t as strong when you fought through the proper channels. Instead of 80%, you’d only see a 50% reduction.

“You,” Zac said, calmly looking at the youthful woman. “I challenge you.”

The woman glowered at Zac, her expression indicating she had neither been through ten duels this month nor one recently.

“I accept. But I pick with skills.”

Zac glanced at Catheya, who helplessly smiled. “The defender can pick either a real duel with skills or a martial duel like I did. Most want to fight with their energy unlocked because they find it easier to defend against a challenge with access to their skills.”

“Alright,” Zac said, and the two walked over to the closest dueling circle.

“Listen to your wife. This time, don’t kill,” Null entreated. “I don’t want you getting kicked out on the first day.”

“She’s not actually my wife,” Zac said. “So, I can just start?”

“In a bit,” Null answered. “You’ll see when.”

At first, Zac didn’t understand what Null was talking about, but his eyes widened slightly as his vision shifted. The surroundings were muted, including onlookers and storefronts. Only the duel circle was fully lit, creating an illusion there were only the two of them in the area. A glass-like barrier split the arena in two to divide them, and a star-shaped pattern appeared above his opponent’s head.

It was definitely a blueprint, and Zac saw his own float above his head when looking up. It was clear what the Perennial Vastness was looking for in these bouts. It didn’t care about exchanging pointers or settling grudges. The Perennial Vastness wanted to pinpoint and remove imperfections from Cosmic Core blueprints.

Many, including Zac himself, found enlightenment during battle, even more so than when visiting special cultivation grounds. That was probably why the Perennial Vastness had arranged this kind of ruleset. A clash might shake loose some ideas and epiphanies, leading to better Cosmic Cores.

Why the Perennial Vastness cared about some D-grade blueprints, Zac had no idea. He guessed it was part of a larger effort to unravel the secrets of the Grand Daos, similar to what the System arranged during the Twilight Ascent. The quest back then was to “Perfect the Tapestry of Twilight,” with various actions furthering that goal.

In a way, you could look at the Perennial Vastness and the Twilight Oceans as experiments by the System. Only one focused on a specific path, while the Perennial Vastness seemed to look at the Dao as a whole. Perhaps that was the case with most trials controlled by the System.

Zac shook his head, focusing on the battle at hand. There was a short grace period where he could observe his opponent’s core without any distractions. His opponent’s expression was weird, as her face alternated between elation and suspicion. Zac inwardly laughed, realizing she was trying to make heads or tails of his unique blueprint.

The grace period lasted ten more seconds before the transparent wall between them disappeared. The duel had begun. Zac’s opponent hadn’t figured out the meaning of his blueprint or his path, but she still rushed forward as a shroud of stars covered her. She had opted to go on the offensive from the get-go.

Zac didn’t have the same problem. There were no mysteries to the two Daos making up the woman’s path or blueprint. She cultivated two Daos, with the Dao of Stars taking the lead. It belonged to the Stellar Peak, also called the Unattuned Peak, because it governed most of the basic Daos of energy. The Stellar Peak didn’t specifically refer to stars, but stars were included in the list of stellar objects that generated the Cosmic Energy planets later absorbed.

The peak also included all kinds of mysterious things, such as the odd rivers through space he’d seen in his Bloodline Vision. There were even whole feeder dimensions that fed the main dimensions terrifying amounts of Cosmic and attuned energies through the Void. Still, normal stars were the most common stellar objects, and also what his opponent’s Dao was fashioned after.

However, her Dao was nothing like the path of Ventus, the Radiant Temple elite he met in the Twilight Ocean. The calculative elf had combined Star Patterns with the Dao of Numerology into some sort of Astrology that actually worked. In contrast, the Stellar Mage in front of him had fused her Dao of Stars with a Dao from the Peak of Impetus—the peak governing emotions and desires.

The Dao of Wrath.

Zac had never seen a fusion like this before since she was a combatant rather than something like a Hexer or Mentalist. It was extremely rare to see Daos belonging to the Peak of Impetus in the frontier. The only one he knew with such a Dao was Vilari, who had been influenced by the Crown of Despair inheritance.

There were no weaker or stronger Daos, but it was harder to get direct results on some paths than on others. It was like how most of the combatants on Earth leaned toward warrior classes like himself. Intelligence-based mages weren’t as common since they only hit their stride in the D-grade.

That was fine for a high-grade established force, but not for weaker places on the frontier where Hegemons was a rarity. The same was most likely true with Daos. Some, like the Peak of Conflict, helped you increase your lethality from day one. But the Dao of Order or Impetus? The Dao Seeds and Fragments that made up such paths might not be very useful in Early-grade combat.

A combat-oriented cultivator might not dare delve into such a Dao, even if they had a high affinity for it. Neither would many forces want to incorporate them into their heritages, since they wanted immediate results for their armies.

Clearly, the woman in front of him hadn’t let herself be limited like that. Her Starry Dao was a Middle Dao Branch, supported by an Early Branch of Wrath. Together, they formed a shimmering shroud that continued to spread through the arena. It almost seemed like she had become the Old Heavens, a force of nature with an inherent desire to destroy everything.

Her eyes glowed with manic light as her hands became beacons of destruction. Even the sky above darkened as an overbearing domain spread from her body.

Zac wasn’t worried as he walked forward—he was elated. His duel with Iz had showcased one of his most critical weaknesses: his lacking experience against the unconventional paths and means Multiverse Heartland elites may have. Even the cultivators inside the Orom were almost exclusively from frontier Sectors or adjacent factions.

Conversely, the guests in the Perennial Vastness were talents from every corner of the Multiverse, including the huge ancient factions at its core. Catheya had estimated that no more than 10% of the guests came from the frontier. Now, his very first real opponent showcased a skillset and path completely new to him.

This was not just a place to form his core. It was a perfect training ground where he could broaden his horizons.

10

THAT HE MAY GROW ARROGANT

Zac’s bones strained under the burgeoning pressure as the stellar wrath of his opponent consumed the whole arena. Her radiant shroud spread to its very edges, and the blue sky had been turned into a star-spangled black. But it in no way resembled a calm summer’s night. Instead, the lights felt like barely contained conflagrations holding the wrath of the Heavens.

The chains of [Love’s Bond] danced around him, but their dance of Inexorable Death wasn’t enough to push back the environment his opponent had created. This wasn’t the result of a skill or Mana. This was a true domain, a path similar to Dao Intent where one elevated their natural Dao Field through various means.

With a powerful domain, you’d have a home-field advantage in any environment. And Zac could tell his Dao Fields would be torn apart if he tried to fight fire with fire. Zac didn’t know the exact numbers, but he suspected the domain strengthened his opponent’s skills by at least 20% as a Cultivation Manual would. Simultaneously, he felt his energy a bit turbid, though he could overpower it with his superior Daos and attributes.

Soon, stars conjured by a skill joined the glimmering firmament, and they fell at him like a meteor shower. The scene was just as impressive as some of the Hegemons he’d fought, and Zac immediately discarded a fleeting idea to win without using any skills. His defenses had gained a huge boost after upgrading his two Dao Branches last month, but that didn’t mean he could just take a falling star to the face.

Four small skeletons appeared behind Zac as a complex sigil formed beneath his feet. It looked like a five-meter-wide summoning circle leading to the deepest recesses of the netherworld. Dense plumes of Death rose just as an oppressively dark coffin appeared above his head.

The arena shook when the first stars slammed into them.

By this point, Zac was already running, the rune beneath him seemingly tethered to his body. The Stellar Mage was slightly disadvantaged by the limited size of the arena. She seemed more suited for large-scale destruction, much like Zac’s human side. Still, it was almost as Zac were trying to force his way through a Heavenly Tribulation as stars exploded all around him.

It took just a second for Zac to reach his target. But by that point, she disappeared in a flash of light, leaving a collapsing star in her place. It imploded almost instantly, only to be swallowed by a swirl of darkness then deposited right where he felt a hint of life in the madness. A pained and enraged scream echoed from the other side, and Zac was upon her, his chains forming an inescapable net.

The Stellar Mage didn’t try to back away again, instead clawing straight at him with her glowing hands. It looked like she was about to rip apart the fabric of reality, and the light was blinding. Yet Zac wasn’t phased in the slightest as Death and Conflict fused into his axe, cutting straight at the claw.

A sudden beam shot out from the mage’s other hand, giving Zac no chance to dodge. However, when it pierced his barrier, it lost some of its radiance and speed. Zac narrowly had time to channel some Dao into his free hand and crush the light in his palm. Simultaneously, his axe slammed into her attack, and her fiery eyes became alarmed at his monstrous strength.

Her momentum was crushed by superior force, and her defenses were broken wide open. Zac was already following up on the strike, his free hand reaping forward like a scythe, cutting upward from her waist toward her neck. Her instincts were solid, and she was already moving to divert his attack.

However, the pathbound barrier failed the Stellar Mage completely, and Zac’s hand was barely impeded on its approach. His fingers stopped right at her throat, barely piercing her skin. Zac prepared to stop any follow-up attack, but a powerful force pushed him back. His vision shifted, once more returning to normal, where the surroundings were in plain view.

The duel was over.

Zac had won after taking advantage of what had felt like a huge loophole. Having driven himself almost mad trying to fuse Life and Death, Zac had ample experience in fusing two different concepts. And with the fundamental understanding of patterns imparted by Ultom, Zac could tell the Stellar Mage’s fusion of concepts was flawed in a few spots, even if they looked okay on the surface.

If she formed a core following that pattern without fixing those issues first, she would lose almost 20% of her maximum energy capacity, and issues would crop up when drawing large amounts of energy. Actually, the loophole this Stellar Mage had was far worse than the weakness of the man Zac executed earlier.

With the fight over, all the skills had been forcibly canceled by the arena, and any hints of their battle were already gone. Zac didn’t care, more focused on his Status Screen.

[Mana: 2,146]

Zac had 1,978 Mana after his earlier transgression, which meant he’d gained 100 Mana from winning, and another 68 Mana for pointing out the critical weakness in her blueprint. It was an unusually high bounty, according to Catheya, who mentioned that most bounties were below 20 points. Zac wasn’t surprised, considering how much it’d affect her future core.

Upon closing his Status Screen, Zac noticed the girl was looking at him oddly, or rather, glaring at him with a fiery look.

“What? Not convinced?” Zac said.

“I don’t understand. Your core is riddled with weaknesses. I was sure I hit a weak spot on your pattern before you defeated me. Yet I didn’t get a single point of Mana in return. What in the Heavens is going on!”

A small smile spread across Zac’s face upon seeing how perplexed and frustrated the Stellar Mage was. Just as expected, his blueprint looked weird to an outsider. Lord Engo understood what was going on, recognizing that his Daos were held together by the concepts of the Void and simultaneously existed in two states.

What about a normal E-grade cultivator, especially one unfamiliar with his path? His blueprint must look like the crude scribblings of a fool, full of weaknesses. That was a far cry from reality, where the esoteric concepts of his core were validated by an Eternal Heritage.

Truthfully, his Void Core Blueprint could probably be somewhat improved now that he’d advanced two of his Dao Branches. But that would be small adjustments to incorporate the most recent gains, nothing like the loopholes he’d sensed in the fusion between Wrath and Stars.

“You might have just missed them,” Zac said.

The girl clearly didn’t buy the excuse, and it looked like she would explode. Zac briefly wondered if cultivating an emotion like wrath was like having a Splinter of Oblivion. She took a steadying breath, and profound tranquility returned to her eyes as she bowed at him.

“Well, thank you for your leniency and for pointing out such a critical weakness. I’ve been here three years, yet this is the first time someone’s noticed anything amiss with my solution.”

Zac felt a bit odd being thanked for snatching her Mana, but he guessed it made sense. What was a few hundred Mana in the face of the chance to improve their Cosmic Core? It was just another mission or a few months of accumulating the beginner’s monthly stipend.

Zac nodded and walked back toward Catheya, who was waiting outside the barrier.

“I was hoping I’d get to see some of your real strength this time,” Catheya said with some helplessness. “I thought I’d made a lot of improvements over the years, but I can’t even tell what level you’ve reached. I can’t believe that girl only managed to force a single defensive skill out of you.”

“Just lucky I found a pretty big weakness.” Zac turned to Ogras, who hid within Catheya’s shadows. “Why not challenge that girl as well? Her path is quite interesting. And since she cultivates Wrath, she might say yes out of anger.”

“It’s tempting, but she seems to have calmed down already,” Ogras answered. “Besides, she’s a troublesome opponent for me. It’s hard to hide in shadows when stars illuminate the whole arena. Let’s split up for now so we can cover more ground. I need to target the easier prey before their duels are claimed.”

“Not everyone can be so carefree,” Catheya agreed, glancing at Zac. “You probably shouldn’t be so overbearing, easily overpowering the enemy in a few seconds. Sometimes, onlookers might feel they can beat you and challenge you right after winning. But that won’t happen with a performance like that.”

“Hm,” Zac muttered, having already come to a decision. “Can I display my blueprint without entering a duel? Like an invitation for people to challenge me?”

“Sure, just ask your guide,” Catheya said.

Zac’s Cosmic Core appeared in the air a moment later.

“What the hell is that?” Ogras blurted, while Catheya’s mouth opened as she blankly stared at his blueprint.

Their reactions were just like the Stellar Mage’s, and Zac felt his idea would work.

“Draugr! I challenge you!” a shout reached them before Zac could say another word.

Zac turned around and found a green-scaled humanoid running over, looking at him like he’d won the lottery. He’d clearly missed the fight just now, thinking Zac was a weakling judging by the core.

“Alright.” Zac nodded solemnly, though he was inwardly laughing. “Here is fine.”

This was exactly why he’d wanted to showcase his blueprint. What could be better bait to get some challenges than a core full of apparent weaknesses? This way, he might be able to pass the limit of the ten monthly challenges. Catheya already confirmed being challenged allotted you the full amount of Mana from winning, no matter how many battles you fought.

That was the reason she pretended to be weak earlier. She’d already made sure to fill up her monthly quota of duels and then used the Grand Firmament Coalition to make some extra money. He had to admit, it was a great scheme, and he even felt a bit bad ruining it for her.

“A martial duel? Great, great!” the bulky warrior grinned as two cudgels appeared in his hands.

Zac smiled as the warrior’s core lit up above his head while the surroundings faded once more, this time in a much smaller area. Unfortunately, Zac didn’t see any weakness as critical as the one in the Stellar Mage’s schematic. Some sections were slightly weird, though Zac couldn’t pinpoint why.

That was fine, though. Not everyone would have easily exploitable weaknesses, and it was good to see what kind of bounty, if any, this level of imperfection held. The wall parted a few seconds later, and the melee cultivator rushed forward, his cudgels radiating an immense light. It seemed as though he’d attached two neutron stars to their heads.

Zac guessed he cultivated toward the Peak of Taiji, which governed Light, Darkness, and Gravity. It wasn’t as rare a path as the Peak of Impetus in the frontier. For example, Ilvere’s Fragment of Momentum belonged to this peak, as did Ogras’s shadowy Dao. However, this was the first time Zac saw a combination of Light and Gravity in what seemed to be another Dual Branch setup.

Light clashed with the black of Death as Zac activated his Inexorable Stance, his two Daos coursing through the framework of [Thousand Lights Avatar]. He became one with his path, his strikes filled with suffocating pressure. Remembering Catheya’s suggestion, he didn’t go all-out, only barely fighting at the skill level of the Early Integration Technique.

Since he was holding back, Zac only managed to seize the advantage after a minute of furious clashes. The radiant force of the cudgels had become restrained at every side. The warrior desperately tried to break out, but chains were everywhere. Death was everywhere. Even Pure Light could die and be winked out, just like stars eventually running out of fuel.

It might have looked like an even match, but the warrior kept falling just short of striking Zac’s barrier. This, too, was by design. Truthfully, it was even harder to control the fight to this degree than claiming a clean victory. Once Zac felt enough time had passed, he “seized an opening” to end things. He was pushed back by the invisible force, confirming the duel was over.

“What the—” the warrior swore, looking like a windfall had slipped right through his fingers. “Do you dare fight me again, but with skills!”

“I dare not,” Zac smiled, ignoring the challenge since you couldn’t repeatedly farm Mana from the same person.

He’d already gotten 100 Mana for his win and another 12 for piercing a small weakness. This man wasn’t as thankful as the Stellar Mage, though. He probably thought he’d get a huge bounty by pointing out several glaring weaknesses in his blueprint, but he didn’t even get the chance to strike them.

“You better hope I don’t run into you in the wild,” the warrior growled before stomping away.

“Sorry about that,” Zac smiled as he walked back to Catheya, who still looked at his core with shock in her eyes.

“You really did it…?” Catheya whispered, looking at Zac hesitantly. “But it looks so…”

“Ugly,” Ogras added from the shadows.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Zac laughed. “It incorporates some pretty uncommon theories that make it look weird. You can challenge me if you want to test it out.”

“How would I beat you? I’d just be giving up my Mana like that guy just now,” Catheya snorted. “Does it really work? Have you fused Life and Death in one core?”

“You knew?” Zac smiled. “That forming a Life-Death core technically is impossible?”

“I—” Catheya hesitated.

“It’s fine,” Zac shrugged. “I’ve known for a while those elders have tried to steer me toward Death, thinking I can’t get both. Luckily, the inspiration of that place showed me a path.”

“Heaven’s favored son,” Ogras swore. “You reach a bottleneck, and an ancient inheritance pops up from the depths of history.”

“Something like that,” Zac smiled, but his grin died down upon seeing Catheya’s crestfallen look. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry. I was forbidden from mentioning it, but I always hoped you could prove convention wrong,” she whispered. “I keep failing you.”

“What are you talking about?” Zac said with a roll of his eyes. “Few have helped me and my cultivation as much as you have, to the point you could be considered half a teacher. You have no reason to feel bad.”

Catheya smiled, but her brows soon furrowed again. “But what if it…”

“Then I’ll deal with it as it comes,” Zac shrugged. “I’m not planning for failure at this point.”

“So it’s an impossible core,” Ogras muttered. “No wonder you had to spend a lake’s worth of water and a full epiphany on that thing. I don’t understand it at all, but I can tell it’s incredibly complicated.”

“It should work.” Zac nodded. “It’ll just be a pain in the ass to create. I’ll probably have to get a lot of Mana to—”

“Excuse me, sir, I would request to exchange pointers,” a voice interjected.

“Alright,” Zac smiled, turning around to see a cultivator wearing flowing robes and holding a stone urn.

“Disgusting,” Ogras swore. “People stick to him like flies to dung because of that messed-up core. I’ll catch up with you two later. Some of us have to work for a living.”

“Thank God I’ve completed my duels already,” Catheya agreed. “I’ll just watch to see how this pans out.”

Forty minutes later, Zac had regained all his lost Mana and more. Attracted by his ugly blueprint, twenty-one warriors had challenged him as he and Catheya leisurely walked from street to street. Zac handled them all the same. A duel without skills where he narrowly won, and the opponent just barely failed to hit his supposed weaknesses.

Catheya looked like a proud parent upon seeing Zac use her scheme to scam people out of their Mana. Unfortunately, Zac knew he couldn’t pull something like this forever. Sooner or later, rumors would spread about his weird core and the fact no one managed to even hit him, let alone defeat him.

He still worked quite hard to make sure as few as possible realized there weren’t any real weaknesses to his core. After all, some might think the bounties were still there, but his infighting technique was too good. That way, people might come for him in the Orange and Red Zones in the future, hoping to rely on their skills or perhaps numbers to defeat him and recoup their losses.

For now, Zac wanted to keep getting challenged until word got out, making use of the steadily increasing foot traffic toward the mission center. But just as a twenty-second target was about to take the bait, the people on the street stopped in their tracks. Zac was the same, as he’d just heard a bell go off in his mind.

“A global message,” Null said. “Want me to play it?”

“Play it,” Zac said.

‘Beware, fellow guests of the Perennial Vastness! There is a devious newcomer in our midst. The name of this undead Draugr is unknown. But in the few hours since arriving, he has callously murdered another guest on the streets of Vastness City. He has also created an intentionally crude blueprint and is using it to trick people into duels.

‘Do not fall for it! His attributes are extremely high, and he’s estimated to have entered the Integration Stage of techniques. Few untiered and first-echelon cultivators are his match in a pure martial clash.’

And just like that, Zac saw his money-making scheme reach a premature end.

11

SINNER’S LAMENT

“What the hell!” Zac swore, feeling he’d just lost his winning ticket as he glared at Null on his arm. “Did you guys do this!”

“It wasn’t us,” Null said. “High-echelon cultivators can send global messages for 3,000 Mana. Looks like you really annoyed someone.”

“Someone wasted 3,000 Mana just to ruin my plan?” Zac exclaimed. “Was it those Grand Firmament guys?”

“Sender is anonymous, and the voice you heard is randomized.” Null giggled. “If you want to know, you just have to become a fifth-echelon guest and pay 3,000 Mana for the information.”

Zac couldn’t help but laugh at the shamelessness of the guides and the Perennial Vastness. They were really willing to monetize everything. Still, considering the message listed his killing of that guy earlier, the odds were in favor of it being the Grand Firmament Coalition. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do much now that the secret had been spilled, but he didn’t deactivate his blueprint projection.

Not everyone bothered with the message, and there was no lack of obstinate people believing themselves infallible among cultivators. Unfortunately, the elemental who had just approached him was not one of these people. It laughed a bit and left after bowing in Zac’s direction.

“Just my luck,” Zac muttered as he walked over to Catheya, who had followed him the whole way.

“Not satisfied?” Catheya asked with a scrunched-up face as Zac stopped projecting his core. “You’ve probably earned more Mana over the past hour than I have since arriving. I just want to lie down and nurse my wounded pride.”

“You look a lot like Ogras right now,” Zac laughed.

“His heart must be as tempered as those baldies by this point, having to travel next to you all the time,” Catheya said with a helpless shake of her head. “So, how much did you earn in your little caper?”

Zac opened his Status Screen, and a smile spread across his face upon seeing his updated value.

[Mana: 4,621]

It wasn’t quite what he’d expected after hatching his scheme, but it was far more than the 1,000 he had been hoping to get before fetching a mission. The problem was that he only managed to find weaknesses in two-thirds of the people he fought. And some had such small issues that he didn’t get a bounty for exposing them, though he might have sometimes found problems where there were none.

Conversely, some of the issues were incredibly problematic to his eyes, yet the opponents always seemed gobsmacked at being charged over 50 Mana for a blueprint bounty. In fact, almost half of his 263 points in bounties came from just three challenges. The truth of Ultom had clearly ingrained him with a unique understanding slightly different than the theories based on the Apostate of Order.

It allowed him to see things others couldn’t, though he usually operated on instincts. It was rare he had a clear understanding of someone’s issues like he had with the Stellar Mage. Mostly it was just a vague notion something would go wrong if forming a core that way.

More interestingly, he didn’t always spot a weakness right away. As warriors channeled their Daos or rotated their Cosmic Energy through their bodies, the patterns subtly changed on their barriers. It was like a sort of stress test of their blueprint, and Zac suspected even more loopholes would appear when fighting proper battles with skills.

“Not much, I earned just under 2,700 Mana,” Zac said with a studious nonchalance, though he couldn’t stop his smile from widening upon seeing Catheya’s face almost collapse.

“Let’s just go find your shadow,” Catheya sighed. “You’ve had your fun, and the missions will be released in less than twenty minutes. At least you can distract the others while the other one and I snatch a good task.”

“Sounds good,” Zac said.

They continued toward the large building Zac had spotted long ago. It was far bigger than the quaint storefronts, looking like a large blue cylinder without windows. Inside was the mission center, though it sounded much more chaotic than the Void Gate’s base, where he first signed up for the Void Star mission.

They didn’t particularly try to look for Ogras—two Draugr reeking of death in a town full of the living stood out. It had been an eye-opening experience walking under the guise of an Undead Empire imperial in this place. At least one-third showed open hostility upon seeing him and Catheya. They would probably have been ganged up on if not for the rules.

Catheya had also received a couple of challenges, mostly based on her origin. Catheya accepted three, winning two and losing one, providing her with a small source of revenue. Their affiliation was quite convenient in that way, though Zac suspected things weren’t as fun for the weaker Revenants.

He hadn’t seen a single one on the streets, though he’d seen three members of the Eternal Clan in the distance. Apparently, they arrived together twelve years ago and showed no inclination to mix with the other undead races. That was fine with Zac, though he made a mental note to watch out, just in case.

Ultimately, his clash with Uona in the Twilight Ocean was barely a blip on the radar for a massive force like the Eternal Clan. It was probably written off as a failed investment for Noz’Valadir before they moved on with their lives.

“Looks like you’ve had a lot of fun,” Ogras’ voice echoed out of nowhere. “A bit too much fun, apparently.”

“Well, what can you do?” Zac smiled. “How did it go on your end?”

“I ran around like a madman, scanning the crowd for people to challenge. Managed to get six wins and four losses,” Ogras said. “Shame my guide won’t allow me to use the flag.”

Zac was a bit surprised. Ogras had come a long way from the unimpressive scion he met during the Integration, but the people here were no pushovers. Zac had won over twenty matches in a row, but he was almost cheating thanks to his Middle Integration Stage Technique and monstrous raw attributes. The only ones who could put up a fight were those who had techniques of their own or similar advantages like Dao Intent.

As far as Zac knew, Ogras hadn’t developed anything special except for his Body Tempering. To eke out six victories out of ten as a newcomer, and without his Taboo Weapon, was an incredible result, even if it only provided a net benefit of around 200 Mana.

“Good job. You didn’t happen to hear anything about who might have sent out the message?” Zac asked.

“Nothing definitive. But the leader of the Grand Firmament Coalition, Nerven Serku, is the most likely suspect. Maybe it’s about saving face in front of his subordinates. The organization is bound to collapse if you just let your people get killed while looking the other way.”

“Sorry, I might have created a grudge against you right out the gates,” Catheya sighed.

“That’s fine. They’re the ones who messed with us first. Besides, it might be for the best. If I can get the whole coalition to hunt me down, I’ll make a lot of Mana.”

“I guess that’s true.” Catheya laughed. “But remember, no fighting inside the Mission Hall or you’ll be ejected. Some will be there just to annoy and distract people. Don’t bite. Eyes on the prize.”

“I got it,” Zac nodded, and they entered the building from one of the many entrances.

There were no receptions, mission boards, or Information Crystals. There wasn’t much of anything. The cylinder-shaped building was almost completely hollow, a room with a diameter of fifty meters running all the way to the ceiling. Across its inner walls, there were dozens of levels of walkways, with hundreds of small balconies jutting out a meter or two.

There were thousands of small glowing bubbles floating in the air in the center. They were the leftover quests that hadn’t been taken since the previous release. Most shone with an orange light, while there was an even mix between red and green. There were far more green quests than red, but less than half of the monthly red quests were claimed. They were simply too dangerous.

Curious about the missions, Zac focused on a random green bubble.

[Green Mission: Weeding out the Gerorin Forest. Daily Salary: 22 Mana. Remove a minimum of 150 Materia-attuned weeds a day to receive a salary.]

‘What does staying in Gerorin Forest cost?’ Zac inwardly asked.

“12 Mana a day, but you can visit that place ten days for free,” Null answered. “You also get to keep the herbs, but the chance of finding something worthwhile is pretty low.”

In other words, the quest provided 10 Mana of profits daily, provided you managed to reach the quota every day. Even if you succeeded, it was a far cry from Catheya’s 1000 Mana profits in eighteen days. Still, it could provide 300 Mana a month. If you completed these kinds of quests for three decades, you would have accumulated over 100,000 Mana.

“Display the quest,” Zac said, prompting Catheya to look over curiously.

“How hard is it to reach a quota like this?” Zac asked.

“Harder than it sounds,” Catheya said. “If you don’t have some advantage that can help, from herbal knowledge to an elemental-based Dao, you might not make any Mana. And it’s not just finding the herbs. Most likely they’ll be guarded by Beast Kings of varying strengths. If you get wounded, you might fail to meet the quota for days while still being forced to pay the entrance fee.”

Zac nodded in understanding as he released the quest. Nothing came for free in the Perennial Vastness, and even the weakest cultivators were powerful elites. Green quests didn’t mean easy, just easier than the others. Catheya hadn’t made a big deal about the quest she mentioned, but those glacier critters had most likely been extremely deadly. Just withstanding the environment would be a struggle for someone without an Ice-attuned Dao.

He hadn’t realized it before, but if the quest was so profitable, why wouldn’t Catheya have stayed for the full month instead of leaving after just eighteen days? She had most likely been pushed to her limits or wounded and forced to leave the dangerous environment.

“Let’s find a spot,” Catheya said, leading Zac up a set of stairs until they were roughly midway up the walls.

More than two-thirds of the balconies were already claimed, while some people were content staying at the railing of the walkways. The balconies provided nominally better positions, but many felt it wasn’t worth getting into a dispute over. There was ultimately a strong element of chance for the mission release.

Catheya and Zac claimed one of the balconies while he spotted Ogras on the opposite side of the building. They were still connected through a string of shadows, allowing them to converse freely. It was a benefit brought by his weird constitution, where the shadows could be considered part of his body.

“If you see something interesting, immediately reserve it,” Catheya reminded. “You have thirty seconds to decide whether to take it or not. If not, just give it up before the thirty seconds are up. You can only have one mission active at a time.”

“Got it,” Zac said.

There was no way to prepare for the mission release. Everyone waited, just staring out across the large empty room. The conversations eventually died down as the lingering quests from last month faded away. Another minute passed, and Zac looked on with anticipation as the ambient energy grew.

Then, a bolt of golden lightning, followed by utter chaos.

A typhoon of innumerable glowing balls appeared out of nowhere like a storm trapped in a bottle. They swirled around in the central region of the Mission Hall, their rapid movements so erratic it was often hard to even make out the color of individual tasks. The only clue was the weak hint of various Daos you could feel when focusing on certain regions. No wonder Catheya managed to snatch a valuable quest before a whole coalition. In the face of such chaos, there were no guarantees, even if you knew about the quest.

Zac felt like he was inside one of those cash games where people tried to grab onto as many bills as they could in a limited timeframe. His gaze flitted back and forth, trying to find an orange light that resonated with his Daos. He was somewhat confident in completing suitable Red Missions from the get-go. But those required either perfect alignment, a lot of helpers, or massive stores of Mana.

If you had none of those, you’d be courting death taking on such a dangerous task. Even if you didn’t get yourself killed or wounded, you’d still have an extremely hard time completing the quest, meaning you’d probably lose thousands of Mana.

The three of them planned on taking on a quest together to work on their cooperation and get the hang of things. A Red Mission was out of the question because they all had different paths. It would be better if they waited until they reached the middle echelons before taking such risks.

Zac finally sensed something promising in the storm emitting hints of Ice and some Illusory Dao. Such a quest would mesh with Catheya and Ogras while letting him get a taste of the dangers in an unfriendly Orange Zone. But before localizing the specific quest bubble, Zac heard an incredibly loud bang behind him, followed by a blinding flash that inundated him in the Dao of Light.

It was just for a moment, yet he lost track of the wisp of Dao in the chaotic storm. Zac swore with annoyance, glancing back at two men who’d positioned themselves right behind their balcony. One held a cymbal, while the other held a lamp that was the source of the strobe-like light drowning their balcony.

They clearly weren’t there to get a mission but to ruin the hunt of others. And they weren’t alone. The Mission Hall had become a madhouse where all senses were assaulted. Some factions even had guards that physically blocked their surroundings to lessen the commotion for those looking for suitable missions.

“I’ll remember your faces,” Zac snorted.

“Too bad they’re fake ones, you rotting bastard,” the man snickered, once more slamming the cymbal.

“Ignore them,” Catheya said.

‘I have something,’ Ogras said from within the shadows. ‘Orange bounty eradication quest. Some ancient burial site called Sinner’s Lament. Lightning and Darkness, with Death creeping up from the ground. Decent rewards from what I can tell.’

That sounded even better than the one he lost out on, but he first glanced at Catheya, who nodded. “Sounds good. No orange quests have bad rewards, and bounty eradication quests are quite popular since they mostly rely on martial strength. It should be a suitable first mission.”

“Take it,” Zac said.

Two seconds later, Null spoke up as a mission prompt appeared in front of him. “You have a mission invitation from guest Ogras.”

[Orange Mission: Destroy the Cursed Mounds of Sinner’s Lament. Bounty: 300 Mana per destroyed Mound. Mounds are considered destroyed when the Sinner’s Nucleus is crushed. Maximum Participants: 10.]

“Accept,” Zac said, and he was surprised to sense the mission’s Dao aura from his bracelet.

“It’s to breed some conflict. If people sense the auras, they might figure out where we’re going,” Catheya explained upon seeing Zac’s reaction. “Alright, let’s get out of here. Our two friends here are giving me a headache.”

Zac wanted to do something against the two agitators, but he didn’t dare create another mess. However, he felt a frigid cold emanate from Catheya as she passed the disruptors.

“The years are long, and the two of you are at the bottom of the totem pole,” Catheya smiled. “Watch your backs.”

With that, they left the Mission Hall, and Zac saw a stream of people leaving. Many likely rushed toward the teleporters to get out of the city before their grace period ended. Others wanted to be gone before too many people recorded the aura lingering on their wrists.

Zac didn’t much care. He welcomed low-echelon cultivators hunting him down in the Sinner’s Lament. Time was limited, and the more free Mana he could get, the better.

“Before we head out, I need to deal with something,” Ogras said, remaining unseen.

“What?” Zac said with confusion.

‘I didn’t break through my Body Tempering Method when I got the creature from that Umbra bastard. It’s sealed, but I can’t keep it for much longer now that it has been taken out of suspended animation,’ Ogras explained. ‘I need three days.’

Zac nodded. Ogras had the same plans as he—to accumulate breakthroughs for free Contribution Points.

“Let’s meet-up in three days, then,” Zac said, drawing a surprised look from Catheya. “If you need me, I’ll stick around in Vastness City a while longer.”

“You’re planning on scamming some more people?” Ogras laughed. “In a place like this, there’s bound to be people taking that message as a challenge. Have fun, I’ll use a few of my trial visits to get a feel of the dangers while dealing with my matter.”

Ogras was right on the money. The notice had harmed his business, but the days around the mission release were the liveliest. It would be a shame to just give up on all that free Mana.

“What about you?” Zac asked, glancing at Catheya.

“I’ve already expended all my trial visits,” Catheya said. “If it’s just three days, I’ll accompany you. Maybe you can take a look at my core as well? I formed my blueprint by combining my clan’s heritage with the truths of that place, but I may have missed something.”

“Of course,” Zac agreed. “But I’m just going by instinct when I find weaknesses. I doubt I could explain even if I found something.”

“Just knowing there’s a problem is enough,” Catheya said, locking her arm in Zac’s. “Why don’t we take a stroll through the market district? It’s one of the livelier places this time of the month. You can’t duel there, but there are arenas right outside. If you showcase your blueprint, you can lure a few people out of the safe zone.”

“I’ll go stab something in the wilderness,” Ogras muttered. “I’m afraid I’ll go crazy over the unjust treatment of the Heavens otherwise.”

“Alright,” Zac smiled. “To the market.”

12

SMALL ACTIONS

Zac didn’t know whether he should be happy or disappointed after having toured Vastness City for three days. Altogether, he’d managed to attract thirty-eight challenges, just seventeen more than he received in an hour before the warning went out. And only four of those were on the third day.

Certainly, the global message warned of a Draugr, meaning he could always turn into his human form and continue. But Zac wasn’t in a hurry. Vastness City had been quickly vacated in the first hours after the missions dropped. A few cultivators had arrived an hour or two after the initial mission release, aiming to get a second pick before the missions were released to the manors across the whole realm.

But they weren’t enough to waste such a good opportunity on. People who didn’t even dare compete for the missions weren’t too likely to challenge strangers out of the blue. Better save that scheme until the next mission release, when the streets were full again. He’d probably be a first-echelon guest by then, but he could always spend some Mana to become untiered again.

One interesting thing about the past three days was that only two of his challengers hadn’t read the notice. The rest of the challenges came from cultivators confident in their strength, who didn’t care about 100 Mana. For them, the announcement was marketing rather than a warning. They appeared more interested in the fact he hadn’t lost a single martial duel than they were in claiming bounties.

Everyone wanted to be the first to defeat Zac’s Inexorable Stance or at least land a solid blow. Half of the challengers came close, and Zac didn’t have to pretend to be weak. Ten of the challengers had entered the Integration Stage themselves, though only one had reached Middle Proficiency. Most of the remaining challengers held other advantages, ranging from intent and domains to powerful constitutions.

However, not one could match up to him in raw attributes, giving Zac an edge in most fights. This wasn’t the Orom World, where people’s attributes were equalized.

A few cultivators moonlighting as information merchants had long since started following him, recording the fights to be sold later. As such, people got a better grasp of where his ceilings lay, and the challengers grew more powerful. And after three days, Zac had finally encountered someone capable of pushing him to his limits.

Zac wasn’t sure if the woman was a golem or a humanoid with stone-like skin. She almost looked like a marble statue, with mysterious grey patterns covering her muscular, exposed arms. Of course, Zac had no time to figure out any hidden meaning within, considering he was busy just withstanding her unrelenting barrage.

The woman was a spear wielder, trapping Zac in the middle of a hurricane of swipes, stabs, and slams. Not even the chains of [Love’s Bond] were enough to seize the momentum, forcing Zac to play by his opponent’s rules until he found an opportunity to turn the tides.

Even if their Daos, paths, and weapons differed, Zac felt connected to his opponent. They both were infighters focusing on strength. Both had three Daos, of which Conflict was one. Both had reached Middle Proficiency in their Integration Stage Technique. Zac even suspected she cultivated a constitution to match his [Void Vajra Sublimation].

There was one difference, though. While Zac had an attribute advantage, his opponent had one more card up her sleeve. Intent. She had mastered both a pathbound technique and Dao Intent, which proved to be an incredibly difficult combo to deal with.

Something like that was normally impossible. Both were expressions of Dao, based on how you looked at the truths of the universe and related them to yourself. Some internalized the Dao, becoming one with it. These people embarked on paths such as Techniques and Harmonization. Others saw it as something external to be controlled, leading to Dao Intent or domains.

Neither path was better or worse than the other. It was more a matter of affinity and personality. But to have both was almost a paradox akin to his being both living and undead.

Each attack of hers contained overpowering intent, and Zac couldn’t find any weaknesses to exploit. The only reason he hadn’t been overpowered even after nine minutes was because her intent wasn’t as developed as her technique. He could barely maintain equilibrium thanks to his superior attribute pool, though his opponent had already pierced his supposed weaknesses a few times.

Since his supposed loopholes were actually solid, her attacks had all been weakened to the point Zac could turn the situation around. Except the statue woman was like an iron dome, her blueprint completely solid. Zac had tried striking a few odd spots, but they were just concepts foreign to him.

Zac was wracking his brain to figure out a way to break the stalemate, but the only thing he could think of was to use his [Void Zone] to snuff out his opponent’s intent and destabilize her. Obviously, Zac wouldn’t use any hidden aces on a random duel, which led to an impasse lasting until Zac found the familiar force pull him back.

Neither side had a clear enough advantage to be considered a winner, which meant Zac was awarded the 100 Mana as a defender after ten minutes. The victory didn’t bring Zac much joy, though. It merely served as an important reminder that he wasn’t infallible. He’d mostly fought newcomers and weaker guests over the past days. There were definitely powerful cultivators among those in the higher echelons, and he couldn’t lower his guard.

Just like Zac wasn’t happy with his win, his opponent didn’t seem to care much about her loss.

“So that’s how it was,” she said, a large pearly-white smile spreading across her face as she looked at Zac appreciatively. “I don’t understand what you’ve done, but I can tell it’s extraordinary. I’ve never heard of anything like it. It’s a shame you’re undead. Otherwise, I’d invite you to join my sect.”

“I didn’t expect there were low-echelon cultivators with such strength,” Zac commented. “I guess you just arrived as well?”

“Ten days ago,” the spear wielder nodded before turning away. “I lost this one, but we have many years ahead of us. We’ll see who leaves their name behind in the end.”

With that, she left, heading in the direction of the market.

“You done?” Catheya asked, her odd Natural Treasure already in hand.

It was inconvenient to walk around with arrays to block out their conversations from the observers, so Catheya had bought an odd Natural Treasure that had a similar function. It created a sphere of three meters where sound was isolated. In return, they couldn’t hear anything outside, making it a double-edged sword.

“I doubt anyone will dare duel me after this fight,” Zac shrugged. “Did you recognize her?”

“No, but someone like that won’t stay unknown for long,” Catheya said, looking at Zac suspiciously. “What, you have the guts to look at other girls while having beauty accompany you? Is Lord Emperor already thinking about his royal harem?”

“How could she compare to you?” Zac smiled.

“That’s better,” Catheya winked. “You’ve really improved since Twilight Harbor, and not just your cultivation. So, what’s your plan now? It’s over an hour until we meet-up with your friend.”

“I don’t have any plans,” Zac said after some thought. “I’ll check out my storefront to see if anyone has messed with it and rest a bit.”

“You’re still not ready to visit your manor?”

“I’ll let things calm down a while longer,” Zac wryly smiled.

“I can’t believe you put your manor atop a Buddhist mountain,” Catheya laughed. “You’re asking for trouble. And how am I supposed to visit when it’s like that? I don’t think I can deal with the pressure you described.”

“Sooner or later, I’ll have terraformed the peak,” Zac said. “You can visit then.”

“It’s a date. I’ll go freshen up and observe my blueprint a bit. We’ll meet at the teleporter in an hour,” Catheya waved before sauntering off.

Zac smiled as he watched Catheya’s receding back. Cultivating in seclusion was fine in shorter stretches, but it ultimately couldn’t compete with exploring the universe with friends. He’d had more fun in the past couple of days just catching up with Catheya while exploring Vastness City than he’d had over the past years.

And it wasn’t like one had to choose between friends and cultivation. He’d learned a lot fighting against all kinds of experts over the past few days. His recent breakthroughs into his techniques had been completely stabilized, and he’d familiarized himself with the basic knowledge of the various realms of the Perennial Vastness.

And it was finally time to check out one of the realms for himself. Zac returned to his storefront but froze upon seeing its interiors had been completely rearranged. His little shop had gained an exquisite set of furniture, and even the walls were decorated with artwork that meshed well with his path.

At first, Zac thought it was something Null or the Undead Coalition had arranged, but he realized he was wrong upon seeing a familiar face sitting at a table inside.

“The place looked a bit downtrodden, so I spruced it up. I hope you don’t mind.”

“You?” Zac said as he stepped into his storefront, a small frown appearing on his face. “I thought I told you to be careful when meddling with Fate.”

Sitting at a small Parisian table by one of the windows was Ventus Kalavan, the elf he’d met in the Twilight Ocean. The last time Zac saw him was after he’d killed Uona. Ventus had been a captive of the Havarok Imperials by that point, but Zac had freed him because of the help and clues Ventus provided.

Since then, Zac had barely thought of the elf, though he kept the invitation token to the Radiant Temple. It had even become one of his more important escape treasures in case he was forced to leave Zecia altogether because of the mess with Ultom.

“Well, turns out your warning came too late. I dipped my feet in the well of Chaos, and my fate was indelibly altered,” Ventus sighed with some helplessness as he pointed at the free chair. “Can we talk?”

‘What echelon is the man in front of me?’ Zac asked in his mind.

“Wow, eighth echelon! This guy’s not bad,” Null answered.

Zac was surprised at Null’s exclamation. Ventus cultivated a powerful path and was quite talented, having two Dao Branches while still in the Twilight Ocean. That was over a decade ago, and Zac could tell Ventus hadn’t been lazing around since then. His aura was more condensed and mysterious, though Zac didn’t believe Ventus was stronger than the woman he’d just fought.

Ventus Kalavan was a genius tied to a weaker B-grade force near the frontier. And he wasn’t even the strongest one in his generation of the Radiant Temple, from what he’d gathered. How had someone like him encroached the levels of Mana that only the most powerful guests reached?

Was it thanks to his insights into numerology?

“Can we even talk here?” Zac said as he looked around. “I’m sure you’ve followed my actions. I bet some people have bugged my storefront.”

“Being an eighth-echelon guest has its benefits. I can pay 10 Mana a minute to completely seal my surroundings,” Ventus smiled as a shimmering wall enclosed the storefront. “There. Now no one but the big guy upstairs can hear us.”

‘Is what he says real?’ Zac asked in his mind.

“It’s real,” Null said. “But you can actually do it from the sixth echelon onward. I think he’s just bragging about his rank.”

“Alright, so what’s all this?” Zac said, waving his hands at the interior.

“These items were all made using native materials from Red Zones. They’ll elevate your storefront. Don’t worry. No one can steal them,” Ventus said. “I felt it a shame they’d go to waste since this is the last time I’ll visit Vastness City.”

“Last time?” Zac said. “You’re about to seclude yourself?”

“Just so,” Ventus nodded. “I have been here twenty-three years. Accumulating. Calculating. And waiting for you.”

“Waiting for me?” Zac said with suspicion. “What scheme are you cooking up this time?”

“No scheme, just an exchange born out of desperation,” Ventus sighed. “Because I don’t want to die.”

“Die?” Zac frowned. “What’s going on?”

“In three real years, I will be entering the Left Imperial Palace as a sealbearer,” Ventus said.

Zac’s heart thudded, but he kept his face impassive. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“You don’t need to bother,” Ventus smiled. “After we parted, I had years to pull various threads of Fate together. Layers and layers, making up the grand calculation of the Heavens. And you should have heard that Alvod Jondir is now part of the Radiant Temple. That allowed me to glean a few critical variables connecting the past with the future.

“And to be clear. I wasn’t planning on investigating you. It was just that my calculations all led back to you. To the Draugr Arcaz Umbri’Zi. And to the human Zachary Atwood.”

Zac tensed up.

“It’s too expensive,” Ventus smiled. “You should be around 300 Mana short. Killing me will get you kicked out.”

“You?” Zac growled. “Was it you who sent out that missive to prevent me from earning Mana?”

“No, that was Holy Son Serku,” Ventus laughed. “He’s still only at the sixth echelon, but his goals are lofty. He’s very sensitive to slights to his prestige because neither his strength nor backing is at the top of this place. So the coalition he’s created isn’t as stable as some others. I just benefited from the side.

“I wouldn’t ruin your good things like that. After all, I’m hoping to cooperate with you down the road. The stronger you are, the better.”

Zac wordlessly looked at the numerologist, unsure what was true and what were lies that helped push the conversation in the direction Ventus wanted. People meddling with Fate were the most annoying people to deal with.

“I should add that only I know about your odd situation. And possibly Alvod Jondir, though I don’t have enough information to make a definitive statement,” Ventus continued. “In fact, the events of Twilight Ocean have been sealed in the Radiant Temple, precluding anyone from discussing them. After all, what our new Grand Deacon did came uncomfortably close to unorthodoxy. The identity of Arcaz Umbri’Zi is known among the elders, but there is nothing about your human half.”

“And why should I believe you haven’t sold me out for some Contribution Points?” Zac asked.

“Why would I do that?” Ventus said rather helplessly. “Maybe if it would have gotten me out of this mess. But since the Radiant Temple treats my generation as fodder, I’ll just keep this to myself. If anything, you’re welcome to bring some Chaos down on the heads of those bastards. Let them feel what it’s like to be thrown into a hurricane of fell Fate.”

‘Now that we’re both guests, will the information seals of the Perennial Vastness stop this guy from spreading information about me?’ Zac inwardly asked.

“Maybe. Our seal only blocks things gleaned here. So, if he figured out your real identity while in here, he would not be able to share it. However, whatever he deduced before entering will not be covered,” Null explained.

“Alright, so you’re a sealbearer,” Zac grunted. “How the hell did that happen?”

“You probably know your sector is sealed,” Ventus said. “However, the seal doesn’t treat everyone the same. It’s not as powerful for locals, by which I mean those from neighboring sectors. A certain faction ordered the Radiant Temple to send some youths into the Million Gates Territory to test their fate. I was among them and got a seal in just three months. After that, I was sent here to break through.”

“What faction?” Zac frowned.

“I can’t say,” Ventus said with a shake of his head. “Suffice to say, I wouldn’t have gotten mixed up in this mess if I hadn’t been forced. There can only be one role for subordinate factions in an event this important, especially when it’s just a bunch of junior-generation cultivators.”

“Sacrifices,” Zac sighed.

“Exactly. The Radiant Temple won’t be damaged in the slightest, even if we all die inside. My elders have probably already collected a valuable reward for providing their superiors with a sealbearer. If I manage to survive the event, it’s simply a bonus.”

“What kind of deal do you have in mind?” Zac asked. “It’s not like I can take your seal off your hands without killing you.”

“For two decades, I have run simulations and calculations for my future,” Ventus said. “Almost all of the divinations end in the same result: death. The odds of me surviving the inheritance are essentially zero. But to cultivate is to go against the Heavens—I’m not willing to surrender to Fate.

“When we last parted, you told me that small actions can turn into a storm that swallows all in its path. Now, that’s exactly what I hope for.”

13

PERENNIAL TRANSFORMATIONS

A storm raged in Zac’s heart upon hearing Ventus’ grim proclamation of his demise. Even if Zac wasn’t particularly close to Ventus, he didn’t wish death upon him. But the horrifying fact remained. The elf, who was more powerful than virtually all of his followers, believed himself to be facing death.

Where did that leave the rest? Was he sending Emily, Joanna, and the others to an early grave?

“How could you even calculate something like that?” Zac asked. “That place shouldn’t be so easily divined.”

“That’s true, and that’s another problem for someone like me. Half my power will be nullified in a realm containing such powerful latent wills and truths. But while the details of the inheritance are unknowable, I can tell the odds of my survival are growing worse by the day. It’s like my river of Fate is turning into a trickle, leaving a parched hollow through time.”

“What do you want me to do?” Zac asked suspiciously. “I can’t just conjure storms and overturn the Heavens.”

“Looked that way in the Twilight Ocean.” Ventus smiled. “All I ask is that you try to save me if we encounter each other inside the Million Gates Territory and let me follow you around.”

“Why me?” Zac frowned. “You know I’m still just an E-grade cultivator. I plan to keep my head down and harvest some benefits before getting out in one piece. I’ve no interest in the main inheritance.”

“Because you are Chaos incarnate. Staying next to you will sweep my Fate up in yours, possibly opening a path to survival,” Ventus said. “And the fact you’re not interested in the main inheritance only increases my chances of survival.”

“Then you want to ride the coattails of my Fate,” Zac surmised. “And what are you ready to pay in return?”

“Two payments,” Ventus said as a thick book appeared on the table. “The first is the fruit of two decades of labor. Today, I have 89,000 Mana, and I will enter the ninth echelon after finishing my final quest. That’s not because I am the strongest person in this place but because I have discovered a few hidden rules.

“Such as?”

“You must have heard about events spawning, providing handsome rewards. But did you know a global event would turn into a private opportunity if you stayed in the area where the triggering event occurred? And what if you could figure out which realms would release such an opportunity ahead of time?”

“You’re saying…” Zac said, looking at the book with interest.

“With my book of [Perennial Transformations], you will reach your destination quicker than working on your own. Your chances of finding rare opportunities in this world will also increase,” Ventus said as he took out a golden abacus. “You need to understand the Dao of Numerology to make full use of this book, but I have prepared a simplified method anyone can use.”

Zac was tempted. If what Ventus said was true, then the book was a treasure. Zac had learned a few secrets of the Perennial Vastness over the past days, which had explained why most elites only stayed a decade or two. It wasn’t that people didn’t want to stay longer, but rather that they couldn’t.

He’d figured it was just a mix of wanting to retain momentum and not wanting to linger too long inside a Temporal Chamber, but there was one more reason. There was something guests called Mana Sickness.

The more Mana you collected, the greater effect you’d have on your surroundings. For the cultivator, that was perfect since it allowed you to form your Cosmic Core more efficiently. However, you were essentially bending the fundamental laws of the Perennial Vastness, and the world started rejecting you.

The more Mana you earned, the greater the effect. Every piece increased this rejection and spending the Mana only partly helped. Some could withstand the sickness better than others, but you were essentially fighting against time at the higher echelons. If you lingered too long, either by earning and spending repeatedly or by hoping to reach echelons beyond your capabilities, you might actually lower your chances of forming a good core.

Though that was rare, you might even find yourself prematurely ejected from the Perennial Vastness. After all, someone feeling themselves succumbing to Mana Sickness could spend a few echelons’ worth of Mana to partly alleviate the pressure before quickly forming their cores.

Zac wasn’t sure if this was related to the world’s laws or intentional design by the Perennial Vastness. The result was that the top-tier elites had to keep pushing themselves and rapidly accumulate Mana before the Mana Sickness reached dangerous levels.

Meanwhile, weaker cultivators at the lower echelons weren’t as affected and could steadily work on the Perennial Vastness experiments to build up their Mana over a longer stay. However, having carried around Mana for decades, they accumulated more of the sickness, and their ceilings were much lower.

Ultimately, the speed with which you could accumulate Mana was the key to how high your Mana Ceiling was. The situation was a bit different for Zac since he needed to return within a decade in either case, but this [Perennial Transformations] was still immensely useful if it could improve his Mana Gathering rate.

The book was quite tempting, yet Zac didn’t immediately accept.

“You said there were two payments. What’s the other?” Zac asked.

“I don’t know,” Ventus said.

“What?”

“Your Fate is always in flux, and I believe it will continue to change during your stay here. Because of that, I will sacrifice a millennium of my longevity to make a deduction just before entering the Left Imperial Palace, figuring out what you need. If you still don’t think it’s enough when we meet inside the inheritance, that’ll be my bad luck.”

Zac thought it over, beginning to slowly nod. “I can’t guarantee anything since I have no idea how things will play out inside. But if a situation appears where I can accept you without giving up one of my people, I’ll do so. However, I won’t fight to the death trying to free you from whoever is coercing the Radiant Temple. You’ll have to figure out how to get away yourself.”

“That’s fair,” Ventus grinned as he stood. “And thus, our fates align.”

“It should go without saying, but if this book turns out to be a scam, the deal is moot,” Zac added.

“You should find it useful, as will your two friends,” Ventus said.

Zac didn’t bother asking how Ventus knew about Ogras. His ability to blend into shadows was difficult to spot, but it wasn’t some invincible ability.

“By the way, which seal do you have?” Zac asked.

“I’m a Threadwinder of Ultom, a sealbearer of the Daedalian Court,” Ventus said.

“Figures,” Zac snorted. “I guess I’ll see you in a couple of years.”

“Work hard like your life depends on it,” Ventus said with a smile. “Because it does.”

The elf left after that, heading toward the mission teleporters. The shimmering runes covering the storefront dissipated a minute later, returning it to its original state. Zac had already stowed the book and abacus by that point. He briefly looked at the door leading back to the mountain but ultimately shook his head.

There was nothing he urgently needed to check out back in his manor. If everything went according to plan, he’d reach the first echelon from the mission in Sinner’s Lament. And if he left a week early, he had time to break through his Soul and Constitution before the next batch of missions were released.

By that point, the storm of Fate atop Mount Illumination would hopefully have calmed down, allowing him to check things out. Instead of risking his life, Zac sat in meditation for the better part of the hour, going over his numerous battles and the inspiration they brought.

Eventually, Zac left the storefront and noticed a few people observing him from a distance. Zac didn’t care, heading toward the teleportation array. This was the price of earning thousands of Mana in a few days.

By the time Zac got close to the teleportation square, the shadows flickered.

“Did it work?” Zac asked with a low voice.

“I’ve broken through,” Ogras confirmed. “My attacks should be harder to deal with now that I’ve inherited the features of another shadow creature, and I gained some attributes as well. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find the third spirit in this place and infuse it in a couple of years. It is the first true threshold of the method.”

Zac nodded in understanding. Ogras had explained his [Spiritlock Technique] before, and it sounded a lot like his own [Void Vajra Sublimation]. After completing each layer, Ogras could break through by sealing another spirit into his body. Having already sealed two, the demon was now working on the third layer of the method. Another breakthrough was the equivalent of Zac’s Minor Sublimation.

“It’s your best bet,” Zac agreed. “The creatures we’ll run into here don’t exist on the frontier. You might even want to get a second beast if you can figure out a way to store it.”

“I’m thinking the same,” Ogras said. “Oh, your little girlfriend is on her way. What’s going on there, anyway?”

“I’m not sure,” Zac said.

Catheya had always been flirtatious, but the situation was obviously different now compared to when they first met in Twilight Harbor. She had clearly indicated a real interest over the past days, and Zac’s arguments against new romantic entanglements only grew more tenuous.

“She might have orders from above, you know,” Ogras commented. “To seduce you.”

“I know her,” Zac said. “If that were the case, she would have made a perfunctory show of it to warn me.”

“Well, then why not give it a go?” Ogras asked. “We’re going to be staying here for years. You can have a short vacation fling. The girl has the looks, provided you can deal with those eyes and her being dead.”

“For one, this isn’t a vacation,” Zac said with a pointed look. “Secondly, there is a life after the Perennial Vastness where things are more complicated.”

“For a netherbeast like yourself, this place almost seems like a vacation. And why do you need to approach everything like they’re permanent commitments?” Ogras countered. “Cultivators live for eons. How many can actually say have found a soulmate that can follow in step on their journey? It’s way too rare. Why not just have fun for a while like the rest of us? If your paths later diverge, so what? It’s not a failure. It’s just life.”

“We’ll see how things pan out,” Zac sighed. “Let’s focus on blowing up some cursed mounds or whatever.”

“Can’t cut your way out of this problem,” Ogras snickered, but he dropped the topic before Catheya walked into earshot.

“You’re back.” Zac smiled. “How was it?”

“Not too bad,” Catheya said. “I have an idea of how to fix the problems you pointed out already. I’ll just have to think about it a bit longer. Are you ready to go?”

“Sure,” Zac said. “I’ve been hearing about these environments for days now. It’s about time I get to see one.”

“Your friend is…?”

“I’m here.”

“It’s weird how good you are at hiding,” Catheya muttered. “You have absolutely no scent when you’ve entered someone’s shadow. Well, I guess that’s a useful skill set for an assassin or scout. Let’s go.”

Zac nodded and approached the teleportation pillars. Over a hundred of them were placed on a square, looking almost like an art installation. Zac picked one at random and placed his hand on it.

“Do you want to open a gate to Sinner’s Lament?” Null asked.

It was an automatic feature since he had an active quest, though he could also tell Null to open a gate to any environment he wanted, provided he possessed the Mana and high enough rank.

“Yes,” Zac said, and the pillar split in the middle to create a doorway.

Zac wordlessly walked inside, with Catheya in tow, and Ogras in his shadows. There was an identical pillar on the other side, and it closed after they’d entered. For the next ten minutes, it would be impossible to teleport to Sinner’s Lament for anyone else, providing a head start for those who wanted to avoid trouble.

Their party wasn’t in any hurry, though. Zac stepped down from the platform, his arrival greeted by a deep rumble from above. The sky was almost black, with dense rolling clouds stretching as far as he could see. There was a suffocating atmosphere, and not just because it somehow felt like the Heavens were bearing down on him. Something was rising from the ground.

Something sinister.

Like Death profaned by madness and ruinous Karma, or a mix of the influence from the Splinter of Oblivion and the cursed energy of the Lost Plane rolled into one. Of course, the aura wasn’t a perfect match. More like the environment had been soiled by some sort of unorthodox cultivation path.

Judging by the name of the environment, some evil cultivator or cult might have been killed or buried here, and their cursed cultivation had bled into the ground. It wasn’t too bad, though. The energy burrowed into Zac’s body like Twilight Energy, but his Hidden Nodes easily dealt with it.

He did, however, note that [Immutability of Eoz] had woken up, and it radiated soothing darkness through his body. It was the first time Zac had seen the Hidden Node wake up outside various experiments, proving the environment didn’t just have a problematic form of energy. The whole area was cursed, literally.

“I took a lap,” Ogras said, appearing in a puff of shadows. “I can’t find anyone lying in wait.”

He wore a black hood obscuring his features, and a swirling haze of darkness around him made it impossible to even make out he was a demon. Just standing next to two Draugr, most would most likely take him as another undead cultivator since his path and clothing did nothing to say anything to the contrary.

“It’s not worth targeting us in an Orange Zone,” Catheya said. “If I were them, I’d lay low a few months before striking when we entered a Red Zone.”

“Makes sense,” Ogras said, his voice almost drowned by a deafening clap of thunder as hundreds of lightning bolts rained down on the ground in the distance. “Some place I picked. That kind of lightning shower can turn most E-grade cultivators into ash.”

“We’ll have to keep watch on the skies,” Zac agreed. “Are the two of you alright in this environment?”

“For now,” Catheya frowned. “But I doubt I can stay the whole month unless something changes, considering this is just the edge of the zone. It’s usually worse further in.”

“What about you?” Zac asked, glancing at Ogras.

“I’m fine,” Ogras laughed. “Actually, this environment is quite useful for my weapon. It absorbs the bad stuff, leaving the rest for me.”

The demon’s handling of the [Shadewar Flag] was a source of worry, but Zac wasn’t about to interfere. He’d be a hypocrite if he tried to enforce orthodoxy on the demon after having turned his follower into a Tool Spirit.

Besides, it wasn’t like Ogras was sacrificing innocent mortals. The demon was just making use of the sinister atmosphere, like Zac did with lake water or other weird treasures he picked up.

“I’m guessing you’re fine?” Ogras asked.

“Yes, no problem,” Zac said. “Be careful, though. I have a Hidden Node protecting against things like curses, and it’s active right now.”

“My Tool Spirit said as much,” Ogras said, smiling. “That long-nosed bastard even mentioned I can use it to upgrade some of my spectral followers into Sinner Wraiths. I have no idea what that is, but it sounds interesting.”

“…What?” Zac said upon seeing Catheya’s look.

“[Immutability of Eoz],” she sighed. “I can’t believe you’re really a descendant of the Vanguard. How can one person have so much luck it spills over on their surroundings?”

“Why complain?” Ogras shrugged. “Just grab onto the coattails and start picking stuff up.”

Zac laughed as he surveyed the seemingly endless wastelands. Neither [Cosmic Gaze] nor his normal vision provided clues about where the nearest Sinner Mound was. The only hint was that the storm seemed to weaken on the horizon in one direction.

“What now?” Zac said, pointing in the direction where the storm was more furious. “Just head in that direction?”

“Most teleporters take you roughly 10 to 20% into the environment,” Catheya said. “Those who want it safe can stay in the outer band, but the mounds are bound to be sparser there.”

“Into the storm, it is,” Ogras grinned as he turned into a streak of shadows.

Zac smiled as he started running as well. They were paying 65 Mana a day to stay here, so there was no time to waste. They’d have to figure things out on the go. The ominous environment couldn’t quell the excitement in Zac’s chest. This was what he’d been yearning for while stuck in his cave.

The sky rumbled, the ground bled, and adventure was calling.

14

BLOOD AND THUNDER

Zac almost felt like the wet black soil beneath his feet tried to drag him under, trapping him in an early grave. But he plugged forward into the unknown, his eyes sweeping back and forth in search of Sinner Mounds.

It was both annoying and liberating that they hadn’t managed to find any Information Crystals on Sinner’s Lament over the past years. That wasn’t to say no one had visited the area, just that none of those selling information packages had one for sale when they passed. It was also possible they’d picked a seasonal environment that hadn’t been open for a few decades, and any information had been lost already.

Either case, they were going in blind with only their instincts and smarts to rely on.

Visibility was extremely bad. The pervasive darkness that held Sinner’s Lament in a death grip was not a simple lack of sunlight breaking through the curtain of clouds. The energy released from the ground contained chaotic but powerful truths, bolstering the gloom with Dao and sin.

“Look,” Ogras said, and the three stopped in front of a stone monolith.

It was difficult to tell whether the fifty-meter-tall rock pillar was a natural formation or something man-made. Any potential markings had been scorched clean by repeated strikes from lightning. Yet, it emitted an incredibly foul aura, and none of them wanted to get too close.

“Doesn’t look like a mound,” Catheya said. “But it clearly has an aura of sin. Let’s break it open and see what’s inside?”

Zac felt it as good a plan as any, and not even the paranoid demon had any objections. A twenty-meter icicle of black ice appeared above Catheya’s head a moment later, and Zac looked appreciatively at the deathly engravings covering it. He’d already seen hints of it before, but Catheya had clearly revamped her ice-focused heritage over the past year. Now, there was a strong aura of Death inside, and Zac almost felt like she had conjured the deathly water of the Abyssal Shores and frozen it.

The icicle shot forward, but the expected scene of rock being blasted apart by a branch-infused attack didn’t happen. A powerful repelling force emerged from the pillar in a shockwave, pushing the icicle away. Zac’s eyes widened, and an enormous coffin appeared to protect the three just before a wave of destruction flung them away. Instead, the shockwave passed them and continued for hundreds of meters before petering out.

“Nasty stuff,” Ogras commented, glancing at Catheya. “Need help?”

Catheya scoffed, taking the pillar’s rejection as a personal insult. Two more icicles joined the first, and the trio generated a powerful resonance as they assaulted the pillar once more. The whole region shuddered as Catheya fought the land itself, and Zac frowned upon sensing that the energy in the area was accumulating.

The shakes and shockwaves seemed to have pushed more liquid to the surface, turning the black soil into mud. The foul liquid contained a decent amount of the native taint, but it was far from creating a problem for Zac.

The only one who had a problem was Catheya, but she’d already created something looking like snow boots out of ice. The temporary shoes kept the dirt and corruption at bay, and she only needed to occasionally reforge them before too much chaotic energy forced its way inside.

Cathey’s attacks grew increasingly ferocious, especially after Ogras coughed and started toying with his spear. And after repeatedly attacking the pillar for a minute, it finally gave out. A colossal eruption of sin swallowed everything in its wake, and Zac was alarmed to find the energy contained a similar force as the blue flames of his pygmy skeleton.

It acted like an array breaker, dismantling the fractal connections that made up his skill. Thankfully, the eruption only lasted a second, and the situation stabilized before [Profane Exponents] collapsed. After things calmed down, only a pile of shimmering rubble remained.

“Anything?” Ogras said, looking around.

“Our guides would notify us if we cashed in a bounty,” Catheya said, shaking her head.

“Well, something with that much energy might still be valuable,” Ogras said, rolling his eyes at Zac upon seeing his look. “What? Not all of us have wealth raining down from the Heavens.”

“Hey, I’m with you on that one,” Zac smiled. “Let’s check it out.”

“I’ll wait here,” Catheya said. “The energy in that rubble makes my hair stand on end. So much for a suitable environment.”

Zac and Ogras walked over, their steps creating sloshing sounds as they sunk to their ankles. The taint in the atmosphere skyrocketed when they stepped onto the rubble, prompting them both to look around with vigilance. [Void Heart] had woken up and started to swallow energy that [Purity of the Void] couldn’t deal with.

Meanwhile, Zac felt a pang of hunger from [Immutability of Eoz] kicking up in gear. On the demon’s side, Zac could see the stream of corruption entering one of his sleeves grow so dense that it looked like a vapor.

“Look at this,” Ogras muttered as he picked up what looked like a large raw ruby radiating waves of ominous light. “Such disgusting energy. Almost looks like crystallized blood.”

“Blood of an unorthodox cultivator, if so,” Zac said. “Sinner Crystals?”

“As good a name as any,” Ogras said, picking up a few more. “Might be useful for nurturing my flag. What about you?”

Zac picked up a crystal and tried absorbing some energy. It was chaotic and chimeral, just like what rose from the ground. His nodes could deal with it in these quantities, even if the crystals were quite energy-dense. Zac even judged them to be somewhere between Peak-quality Nexus Crystals and the Cosmic Crystals he couldn’t use yet.

“A lot of energy in these guys,” Zac commented. “Just need to spend some effort to purify the gunk.”

Unfortunately, it’d be faster to absorb Nexus Crystals if he wanted to recover energy, and he could just use Beast Cores if he needed large quantities of energy to push his levels. Ultimately, they weren’t much use to him.

“You can even use these things?” Ogras said with some shock. “Wouldn’t want to see the kind of blighted item not even your weird body can’t handle.”

“Me neither,” Zac laughed. “I’ll take a few for emergencies and to study. You can take the rest unless Catheya wants some.”

“That’s fine by me.” Ogras grinned as hundreds of tendrils spread from his body, extracting the Sinner Crystals from the rubble.

“Enemies!” Catheya shouted.

Zac and Ogras looked up just in time to see Catheya rip apart a spectral creature with a couple of smaller icicles.

“Wraiths?” Zac said with surprise, but he wasn’t sure if he was correct.

One monster after another rose from the ground, sharing both the dark sanguine hue and chaotic aura of the Sinner Crystals. They were translucent, vaguely holding the shape of grotesquely misshapen humanoids.

The creatures that had appeared out of nowhere were spectral in nature, but the deathly energies in their bodies were just a small minority in the face of the overwhelming sense of sin. From an energy perspective, they reminded Zac more of the Qriz’Ul from the Lost Plane than any spectral.

“Guess it was too optimistic we’d get these good things for free. Are they here for my crystals?” Ogras muttered. “Well, we can’t have that.”

His words were followed by a sea of shadows, swallowing all the ghouls around them. Dark spears full of his Dao skewered the creatures, ripping them into shreds before they even had a chance to emerge.

“Something’s wrong,” Ogras frowned. “They’re not actually dying.”

Zac took out a small throwing axe and infused it with his Branch of the Kalpataru. He threw it into the chest of a phantom, prompting it to explode. However, Zac gained no Kill Energy either. When following the energy swirls with [Cosmic Gaze], he could also tell the creature was slowly trying to reform.

“Not even the Dao of Life can kill these bastards? What in the nine hells are these things?” Ogras swore as the sea of shadows surged. “They’re not ghosts.”

“I don’t believe they’re actual creatures,” Catheya shouted, her hands already full dealing with an ever-increasing number of wraiths. “I think they’re resentment taken form. They’re essentially part of the environment. As long as the earth is cursed and there’s enough energy, these things will keep appearing.”

“You saying we need to blow up the earth to deal with them?” Ogras said, pointedly looking at Zac. “Well, that’s your cue. You’re the blow-things-up guy.”

“Can’t you capture them with your flag?” Zac said with a roll of his eyes.

“These things have no soul,” Ogras said. “Won’t work.”

A piercing shriek from a phantom who had survived their onslaught interrupted their discussion. It clawed at Zac and Ogras from over thirty meters away, and deep, bleeding groves were dug into the ground as blades of condensed resentment ripped toward them. A spear appeared in Ogras’s hand, and he launched a salvo of illusory stabs that stopped the incoming wave of destruction.

“They might not be real, but their claws definitely are,” Ogras frowned.

“And they just keep coming,” Catheya added.

She wasn’t joking around. At first, there had only been a handful of them. In just half a minute, that number passed one hundred. And it continued to increase. Meanwhile, the wraiths they destroyed just reformed, adding to the tally.

“Gather the crystals as quickly as you can,” Zac said as the large, jagged edge of [Gorehew] appeared around his axe. “If they’re formed or attracted by the Sinner Crystals, the wraiths might dissipate when they’re stashed away.”

“I’ll take the left,” Catheya commented as hundreds of crystalline flowers appeared around her.

They gently floated on the wind in a beautiful display. But to [Cosmic Gaze], they all looked like miniature bombs filled with Ice and Death. They flew into the field of wraiths and began a deadly dance that ground all wraiths to dust over and over in an endless cycle.

Zac took on the other side, releasing [Deathmark] while personally wading into the army of phantoms. The corrosion of his domain skill had reached another level upon elevating the skill to Peak-mastery. The bloody ground frothed and bubbled, and plumes of smoke rose from the ghouls as the skill broke them apart.

The corrosive domain dealt with the resentment wraiths as they came, but their demise was hastened as one axe wraith after another joined the fray. They looked like death incarnate, valiant executioners conjured from the underworld.

A war erupted by two very different sets of wraiths, where claws met axes. The wraiths summoned by [Deathmark] were far superior, but the resentment proved endless. Zac and his summoned helpers killed everything as fast as they appeared, except the situation worsened. Two were destroyed, but three reemerged, and Zac could tell they were surrounded by thousands already.

“That’s all of them! There are no more crystals left!” Ogras shouted from his spot at the rubble. “Holy hells, what’s going on? It’s an ocean! We’re surrounded!”

Zac frowned, and the world froze a moment later as he became a stream of Death. He flew straight into the sky, reaching hundreds of meters in no time. He immediately understood what Ogras meant. It really looked like the area around the broken pillar had become a lone island in a sea of blood. The waves appeared frozen now that his perception of time had been shifted, but the bloody ocean stretched as far as Zac could see, even when this far into the air.

Worse yet, he could see how innumerable wraiths were rising from the waters. He couldn’t even begin to calculate the numbers, but he suspected there would be millions in a matter of minutes. Just how much blood and resentment had been trapped in the ground, and why was it all coming back up now?

“It’s bad,” Zac said after landing on the ground. “There’s no way we can deal with what’s coming.”

“Well, the crystals are gone, and they’re still coming,” Ogras said. “Let’s run?”

Ogras appeared next to Zac the next moment, Catheya already brought over in his shadows. The surroundings twisted a few times over as Ogras teleported them away through the Grey World, but the demon soon stopped.

“Uh,” Ogras muttered. “I think we might be in trouble.”

“What’s wrong?” Zac said as he fought off the wraiths that were already bearing down on them.

“We’re trapped,” Catheya sighed as she pointed to the left. “We moved in a circle. Look.”

Zac glanced over and saw the broken pile of debris just fifty meters away. It had already been claimed by a storm of wraiths that now ambled toward them. Zac knew how quickly Ogras could move with his movement skill, so something was obviously wrong.

“I think the ocean is forming a natural trapping formation. How is this an Orange Zone!” Ogras spat.

“Fight and move,” Zac said. “It might be just movement skills that are blocked.”

The trio set out, with Zac in the front and the other two dealing with the wraiths to the sides. The chains of [Love’s Bond] were already empowered by [Blighted Cut] and dripping with corrosion. They moved like deadly snakes piercing one wraith after another. A swing of [Gorehew] summarily destroyed the few that made it through the web of destruction.

The wraiths returned fire in kind. Claws raked through the air, and balls of condensed resentment were spat. Even the rising tide of bloody water formed spikes and constraints, trying to hamper their escape. Yet Zac was like a steamroller, destroying everything that impeded their path with a storm of violence.

The familiar sea of shadows had swallowed the sea of blood to their left. Innumerable spears wrought havoc, while Ogras complemented it with a graceful dance with his spear. Zac could tell the demon had made many improvements in his Combat Technique. He’d seen just how big a boost Zac’s stances were when they reunited in the Void Star, and it looked like the demon had worked hard on that aspect during his years in the Million Gates Territory.

Still, Zac could tell Ogras wasn’t actually embarking on the path of techniques like himself. It seemed more like the demon had developed a combat style that meshed better with his Daos than the crude techniques he’d learned back in Clan Azh’Rezak. Ultimately, Zac felt intent would suit the demon’s battle style better.

Catheya froze the whole ocean on her side, which temporarily slowed the formation of wraiths. Those that made it through the sheet of ice were then destroyed by her flowers. The trio’s strength was more than enough to deal with the onslaught, although Zac wasn’t optimistic about the situation.

He wasn’t wasting much of his Miasma to deal with the wraiths, but Ogras and Catheya should already have used up more than 20% of their stores. And if anything, their plight was only growing more serious. They had been running for ten minutes, and the only change was that the ocean had gone from reaching their ankles to their knees.

“We’ll run out of energy if nothing changes,” Catheya said, echoing Zac’s thoughts.

“The sky!” Ogras exclaimed.

Zac looked up, and he almost groaned. A huge swirl was forming above their heads, gathering tremendous energy. The cloud almost looked like a strobe. They’d probably have been blinded if not for the Dao-empowered darkness.

And then the darkness was dispersed.

The world was drowned in a cleansing white as a waterfall of punishing lightning rained down from the sky. The whole sanguine ocean was pushed to a boiling point, and each bolt annihilated thousands of wraiths. That didn’t mean Zac and the others were safe. The lightning was indiscriminately trying to destroy everything on the ground, them included.

Ogras had blocked the first bolts with a wave of shadows, but his skillset wasn’t optimal at defending. Still, the quick response gave Zac time to activate [Profane Exponents] again. A huge five-meter coffin formed an umbrella of protection while Catheya froze and shattered the bloody sludge around them to prevent lightning from spreading to their legs.

Ogras even fished out a set of metal spears and drove them into the ground in a circle around them, using them as lightning rods that would lead any stray arcs into the ground. It felt like they were witnessing the end of days as thousands of bolts rained from the sky.

“Not good,” Zac swore as he felt one impact after another on his shield.

The lighting wasn’t just pure destructive energy. It contained a complex set of patterns that were even more effective at destabilizing his skill than the shockwave from before. Each bolt destroyed some of the fractals, leaving the whole barrier weaker. Zac could feel how the skill grew more unstable by the second, and nothing he did managed to turn the tides.

Meanwhile, the resentment of Sinner’s Lament was trying to fight back. The millions of destroyed wraiths had turned into a shroud of darkness that tried to block out the lightning. But it was futile. Zac would have thought the Old Heavens themselves had descended if not for the lack of that ancient fury. The shroud of sin was purged, and the bloody ocean vaporized or pushed back into the ground.

Zac desperately held on, channeling huge amounts of Mental Energy into the skill to forcibly keep it together. Eventually, it looked like both the Heavens and the earth had been exhausted, which allowed the three to breathe out in relief.

The skies didn’t clear up, but they at least returned to their normal level of gloom. The sea of blood was gone, and so were the wraiths. [Profane Exponents] collapsed after Zac stopped infusing the skill with Mental Energy.

“Whew,” Ogras said as he dragged one of his spears from the ground.

It had melted and turned into a twisted ornament, though Zac noted the material had transformed somewhat. The metal now contained a hint of that purifying lightning. If reforged, could it perhaps be turned into something that destroyed the wraiths more permanently if they returned?

“Three hours in and we almost get ourselves killed. This place is far more dangerous than the trial zone I visited,” Ogras spat.

“Welcome to the Perennial Vastness,” Catheya laughed. “Where every zone is a deathtrap.”

15

SINNER MOUNDS

The trio slowly moved away from the scorched battleground, unwilling to stay and afraid to run too quickly and trigger another event. Yet even after ten minutes, the surroundings showed no inclination of going out of control again, which allowed them to breathe out in relief.

“The lightning really saved our bacon there.” Ogras frowned. “Were we just lucky, or was that by design?”

“It should be by design, right?” Zac said. “Otherwise, this place would be a taboo zone rather than a place for guests to refine themselves. It’s not even considered a Red Zone.”

“I think so as well,” Catheya agreed. “I guess the lightning will be conjured when the corruption reaches a certain point. As long as we endure until then, we’ll be safe.”

“I guess we’ll just have to keep going to find out,” Ogras said. “Could also be because we destroyed that pillar. If we avoid those things and just look for the mounds, we might not attract such a calamity.”

“Give me a few of those crystals you looted,” Catheya said.

“What? Why?” Ogras said, his eyes narrowing.

“Has poverty driven you mad?” Catheya giggled. “I want to see if I can use them to create some sort of compass. Our current situation isn’t too good, no matter if the ocean rises again.”

“What do you mean?” Zac asked.

“We need to start looking for clues,” Catheya explained. “With 300 Mana per mound, we need to destroy two every three days to break even. Even more if you’re deemed to have provided more to their destruction than us because of your strength.”

“You’re saying that with such a low daily quota, the mounds are likely quite far apart,” Ogras said.

“That’d be my guess,” Catheya nodded. “If you’re alone, you only need to find one every five days. If you find two, you’re making a windfall. In other words, if we just run around randomly and have an unlucky streak, we might not see a single mound for a week. Especially if we get stalled by waves of phantoms.”

“And if we fine-comb each region, we’ll waste too much time,” Zac sighed.

“Exactly,” Catheya said. “Don’t get fooled by all the Mana you’ve earned over the past days. Normally, Mana doesn’t come so easily. Withstanding the eruption of resentment can be considered a basic test of strength, but we also have to use our heads.”

“Can you experiment while moving?” Zac asked, his chains forming a chair. “Might as well continue toward the center of the realm while we figure out a plan. I can carry you while you focus on the Sinner Crystals.”

“Perfect,” Catheya smiled as she sat down.

A moment later, a floating worktable of ice appeared in front of her, and one tool after another appeared from her Spatial Ring.

“Keep going. I’ll scout the surroundings for clues,” Ogras said, relinquishing some of his spoils of Sinner Crystals to her, then disappeared in a puff of shadows.

“It’s hard to believe how much that guy has improved since I saw him in the Tower of Eternity,” Catheya commented while she began shaving off the rough edges of one of the Sinner Crystals. “I mean, I improved because I got invited to the Abyssal Shores. But he’s been in the frontier the entire time?”

“Well, he did get sucked into a newly-born Dimensional Seed shortly after we parted the first time,” Zac chuckled. “The birth of a new realm drowned him in Origin Energy, to the point his whole body was refined and improved. And that’s just one of his lucky encounters.”

“A gathering of Fate,” Catheya hummed.

Zac kept running toward the heart of the realm for the next hour, stopping at anything that looked out of place in the dour world. They could soon confirm that the bleak wastelands hadn’t always been a desolate wilderness. They did find hints that large cities had once stood here. However, that was eons ago. Now, only hints of foundations remained.

Digging up the foundations of some of the ruins didn’t provide any clues beyond the fact that the resentment in the ground was noticeably worse within any city limits. It gave credence to the theory that a large-scale sacrifice might be the source of all the Fell Energy. Zac even found some Sinner Crystals sitting right in the soil within city limits.

Catheya ventured they’d be able to find Sinner Mounds if they found large enough cities. The resentment would be the densest there, possibly giving birth to whatever a Sinner Mound was. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any better idea on how to find cities than mounds. Perhaps if they found a map of the fallen kingdom, but they didn’t uncover so much as a scrap.

While Zac alternated between walking toward the inner regions and digging through the mud, Catheya was fast at work with her experiments. She’d already refined dozens of raw Sinner Crystals, which now had the same shape as any Nexus Crystal.

From there, she’d begun carving intricate patterns on their surfaces, reminding Zac of the elevated crystals he’d found in the treasury of the City of Ancients. However, these patterns weren’t designed to make energy extraction easier, though Zac couldn’t tell what she was up to.

“I’ve broadened my study of formations from just focusing on raising bodies,” Catheya commented when Zac looked over curiously. “After visiting the Abyssal Shores, I realized I couldn’t just focus on my cultivation if I wanted to become a real Heaven’s Chosen. All the bigshots have some unique advantages. Formations will help me both in combat and while adventuring. After learning about the Left Imperial Palace, I’ve redoubled my efforts.”

Zac nodded in understanding. He was the same, though almost to the point of overdoing it between his various side-projects like Soul Cultivation and his techniques.

“Well, let me know if you need more crystals,” Zac said. “Seems there are accumulations everywhere.”

“Let’s not tempt fate just yet,” Catheya smiled.

Unfortunately, trouble came knocking even if they weren’t looking for it. Zac noted that the ground started to get wetter again, almost like walking through moss after rain. The ambient energy was also stirring, and Zac could tell where it was headed.

Five minutes later, he saw the first resentment wraith rise from the ground. Zac was about to strike it down, but an illusory spear ripped it apart as Ogras appeared.

“Anything good?” Zac asked.

“Nothing,” Ogras sighed. “Just a bunch of deposits. I did find a few tombstones, but there was nothing inside.”

“You dug up the graves?” Zac laughed as he destroyed another wraith. “Asking for trouble.”

“Nothing happened,” Ogras shrugged. “I destroyed a smaller pillar on the way back as well. The accumulation had already begun and releasing a bunch of crystals seemed to have hastened the process. Also, we’re clearly being targeted. It’s like the bloody ground is conscious. When I moved quickly, I reached dry land. But when I stopped, the blood caught up. Even returning to my previous locations showed it had dried up after I left.”

“Running away probably won’t work, even if we leave before the ocean emerges,” Catheya commented. “In return, we can hasten the tribulations by splitting up and destroying pillars.”

“You don’t feel we have enough excitement already?” Ogras laughed.

“Well, it might be important,” Catheya said. “There has to be a connection between these surges and the mounds. And the more eruptions we withstand, the better our understanding will be.”

“Well, let’s take care of this before we figure out our next step,” Zac said, his chains already weaving a net of destruction around them.

“You two deal with this round,” Catheya said. “I want to keep working on these crystals and see if I can figure something out while the resentment is surging.”

“Sure,” Zac agreed.

He’d have to cover a wider area, but it didn’t much matter. Now that they knew they just needed to stall, they didn’t have to fight as hard. The wraiths weren’t too smart, and even simple tricks would slow them down.

“Good luck, my handsome guardians.” Catheya winked as a small icehouse rose around her. “I’ll be in my lab.”

“Pretty convenient, that,” Ogras muttered. “I guess it’s time to get our hands dirty again. Ought to see how my little helpers deal with this place.”

A moment later, a stream of spectral creatures streamed out of the demon’s sleeve.

“You’ve given them Sinner Cores?” Zac asked curiously.

“It’s an experiment,” Ogras said. “We’ll see if that little bastard knows what he’s doing.”

“Bah! How could such a simple experiment stump me?” a derisive snort countered as the goblin warlock emerged. “It’s just some condensed resentment marked by ritual magic. It might have proven a bit troublesome if the essence remained, but this is clearly a shadow of the original resentment. A tenth of a percent, at most.”

The goblin punctuated his words by gathering the resentment and throwing it into a pack of ghouls. For some reason, the creatures went insane and started fighting each other instead of advancing.

“See? Simple enough.”

“There’s the trademark Ra’Lashar overconfidence,” Ogras laughed.

“You two are friends again?” Zac asked curiously.

“Hardly. But we’ve reached an accord,” K’Rav said.

“As in, he gave up,” Ogras said with a roll of his eyes.

“What do you know? I’ve finally gotten the chance to see the true nature of the wider universe. With this ‘System’ in place, I am better off helping with the realignment process of the [Shadewar Flag]. That way, I can be grandfathered into the Heavenly Path and given a chance at rebirth.”

“So now I have a half-competent helper,” Ogras grinned.

“Bah! You might have found some clues while sipping on the truths of the Lost Plane. But so what? Every Ra’Lashar Warlock has done the same, and see where that got us. Besides, a fool like you wouldn’t be able to realize those goals in tens of thousands of years if not for my expertise.”

“Alright, I’ll leave the two of you to it,” Zac said with a helpless shake of his head as he covered the other side of the ice lab.

Ten minutes later, they found themselves in a sea of thousands of shrieking wraiths that tried to rip them apart. They quickly confirmed by the increased intensity of thunderclaps that another lightning punishment was already accumulating.

Then the sky lit up, and a purifying rain showered the surroundings. Zac had already set up his shield canopy, looking thoughtfully at the sky.

“Hold the fort, will you?” Zac said as he started walking.

“Ah?” Ogras said with surprise, rolling his eyes upon seeing Zac walk out of cover. “Lunatic.”

“I’m just going to—” Zac said, but his explanation was interrupted by a flash of white.

Zac felt like his whole body was set on fire, and every muscle twitched from the voltage coursing through his limbs. Even his Miasma was electrified, though the effect was highly unstable. It was lucky [Black Death] was attached to a chain, or he’d most likely have dropped it. Since there was no time to lose, Zac forced his arms to listen. He threw his axe at one of the few nearby wraiths still standing, his eyes observing all changes.

It worked. He’d infused his edge with his electrified Miasma, and the wraith had been completely destroyed. He still didn’t get any Kill Energy from destroying the creature. Still, he could see that the accumulation of resentment had been purified rather than ripped apart only to reform later.

Seeing Ogras’ spears during the last tribulation gave him the idea. Zac figured it might be the key to dealing with the Sinner Mounds.

‘That hurt, you know,’ a voice said in his mind as one of the chains flicked his head.

‘Sorry about that,’ Zac wryly smiled as he retreated beneath the shield canopy again.

A while later, the chaos subsided. Overall, the surge hadn’t been quite as bad as the previous one, which was possibly linked to destroying the huge pillar before.

“The sky really holds a sealing formation designed to keep the resentment in check,” Catheya nodded as she stepped out of her hut. “A lightning cultivator would likely be able to speed that process up by infusing their Dao into the clouds. Or even borrow its strength.”

“Did you figure anything out with the crystals?” Zac asked.

“The Sinner Crystals did resonate with the environment when the resentment surged, especially after I engraved some amplifying patterns on them. I can create an array that can tap into that force. But I don’t know how to tune my compass to a Sinner Mound without seeing one,” Catheya sighed. “We might have to find one by chance and study it before I’ll have any solutions.”

“Split up and search?” Ogras offered. “We should all be able to deal with at least one or two surges without too much trouble, especially if they get weakened when split up.”

“Seems like our best bet,” Zac agreed.

“Wait,” Catheya said, taking out three crystals. “I figured we’d need a way to communicate, so I got these. Some outside communicators encounter issues inside the Perennial Vastness, but these are made by native materials.”

“Don’t stray too far,” Zac said as he accepted a crystal.

The three split up, with Zac running straight ahead while Ogras and Catheya veered slightly to the left and right, respectively. A few minutes later, they were out of sight, swallowed by the darkness.

The sky rumbled as Zac ran. Occasionally, he flew into the skies with [Abyssal Phase], but it didn’t much improve his vantage. The pervasive darkness swallowed the horizon, leaving him with a meager field of vision. Like this, minutes turned into hours.

“The wraiths have started gathering here,” Ogras’ voice echoed through his crystal.

“Nothing here yet—” Zac said, but he was soon proven wrong. “No, never mind. They’re here.”

“And here,” Catheya soon added, and the screeching wails of her enemies joined the cacophony around Zac. “A clue, perhaps?”

It did seem like Ogras’ tide had appeared slightly before Zac’s, while Catheya’s came last. Might mean the corruption was stronger in the demon’s direction, which could indicate a mound. Then again, it might be the opposite, with a mound on Catheya’s side gobbling up the surrounding resentment.

“Well, it’s worth following up on,” Zac agreed. “Let’s see how the surges look when split into three.”

In the end, the eruption came and went. Splitting up had weakened the onslaught somewhat, but it turned out that wasn’t an advantage. In return, it had taken longer for the lightning punishment to condense, forcing them to waste more energy to stall the wraiths.

They gathered up for the next couple of surges to defend together before splitting up again. Eventually, ten surges and the better part of a day had passed, and Zac started to wonder if they’d missed something. Until finally, there was a change.

“I think I have something,” Catheya’s voice echoed through the communicator. “Come over to me.”

Zac changed course, veering straight left, following the tracking feature in Catheya’s communicator. Half an hour later, he’d caught up with her, and the demon arrived soon after.

“What’s going on?” Zac asked.

“Over there,” Catheya said, pointing toward the horizon. “I’ve seen lightning strike at the same spot three times now. It happens every twenty minutes or so. Furthermore, the resentment in the ground is being dragged over there.”

“Finally,” Ogras grinned, glancing at Zac. “I was starting to worry your luck was on the fritz.”

“Let’s just go,” Zac smiled, and they rushed toward the spot Catheya indicated.

The location was hard to miss after getting close. Every large natural landmark in Sinner’s Lament had probably been blasted by the lightning, so seeing a large hill really stood out.

Calling it a mound was an understatement. It was over two hundred meters tall and twice as wide. Most of it was covered in the dense clouds of resentment, but Zac could see lingering bolts of lightning crackle within the sanguine mist before dying out.

It was undoubtedly a lingering effect of the previous punishment from above, but it was far from enough to extinguish the extreme amounts of sin that had accumulated. The mound oozed resentment, both literally and figuratively.

The mission had mentioned they needed to destroy a Sinner Core to claim the bounty. Zac had no idea what the core looked like, but it didn’t much matter at this point. If he blew up the whole hill, the core should also be destroyed. If not, he’d keep digging.

“Alright, you guys ready?” Zac said. “I’ll blast it apart in one go.”

“Go for it,” Ogras grinned. “It’s finally time to earn some Mana. And I bet there are thousands of Sinner Crystals in this thing.”

“Wait, you lunatics!” Catheya laughed, lightly slapping Zac’s arm. “Give me a second to take some measurements. Besides, we should wait to see what happens when the next lightning bolt strikes.”

“Alright,” Zac sighed, but he still sent a mental command to his Duplicity Core.

Miasma was replaced by Cosmic Energy, and [Verun’s Bite] appeared in his right hand. The moment Catheya was done, the Sinner Mound would be met with judgement.

16

RESENTMENT AND PUNISHMENT

The lightning struck the mound every twenty minutes, so it wouldn’t be long. However, Zac and the others were forced to continuously retreat farther and farther away. The mound’s aura was incessantly rising, creating a domain that even Zac had trouble dealing with. No wonder lightning had to strike so often. If it didn’t, this place would unleash surges twice an hour. Or possibly generate something even worse.

Zac wasn’t even sure what would happen if he struck the mound while it contained such vast amounts of resentment. It could lead to an explosion that swallowed them all. Catheya was right; better let the formation in the sky pave the way before making a move.

Ogras and Catheya weren’t idle while Zac prepared to strike. Ogras kept watch of the surroundings while sending shadows and captured souls to investigate the mound and what was going on underground. He didn’t find out much, except that the mound was just as dangerous as it looked. Any shadow that tried to dig into the hill had to be sacrificed before Sinner’s Lament’s extremely evil taint rushed into the demon’s body. And any spirit that entered the ground was profaned to the point the [Shadewar Flag] soon lost control.

Catheya performed her own experiments, mostly recording the energy signature of the mound while trying various means to lock onto it. Eventually, Zac saw an array of engraved Sinner Crystals light up, their tips pointing toward the Sinner Mound.

“Yes!” Catheya exclaimed.

“Just in time,” Zac smiled as he glanced at the rumbling sky. “You’re done with this one?”

“I’ve found the signature,” Catheya nodded. “I can’t guarantee my solution is perfect, but it should work. I can keep refining it over the next days from here on out.”

“Perfect,” Zac said, cracking his neck. “We can’t stand around this thing much longer anyway.”

Zac hadn’t reached his limits yet, but he could tell Catheya and Ogras were struggling with the accumulated resentment. Its concentration was terrifying next to the mound, even compared to the surges they’d endured. Something must be preventing the resentment from turning into wraiths here and remaining a blighted Miasma.

Ogras’s eyes were already tinted with red, and Zac could tell he was struggling with containing murderous impulses. They had to constantly rotate their Dao to remove the filth of the environment, but who knew what kind of sequela this kind of thing left behind?

“We should create a sealed chamber after this to cleanse the filth,” Catheya sighed. “Might even need a visit to the Eastern Qi Pools after this task.”

“A spa day doesn’t sound too bad right about now,” Zac laughed.

The sludge pouring out from the mound had already reached their ankles, and it was pitch-black in contrast to the dark red of the previous surges. Almost like something was nibbling at his feet, but Zac didn’t avert his eyes from the storm in the sky.

Finally, a lightning bolt as thick as an ancient oak came crashing down. The mound wasn’t to be outdone, and a pillar of resentment rose to block. Ultimately, Sinner Mound couldn’t match the wrath of the skies, and the pillar was ripped apart after exhausting less than a third of the lightning. The bolt continued, drowning the whole area in blinding light.

A tsunami of crackling gunk was thrown off from the mound, but a wall of ice rose to prevent it from swallowing them. The light was already fading a second later, and Zac knew this was his chance.

Cosmic Energy surged in his body, and a gate appeared in the sky. It was completely different from the crude scar in space that appeared with the weaker versions of [Arcadia’s Judgement]. It didn’t even close after the huge wooden hand emerged. Instead, it grew over ten times in size as it teleported over to hover right above the Sinner Mound.

A dense set of patterns formed at the portal’s edge, and the whole mound groaned as it was drowned in golden-green light. The scene was reminiscent of his old skill that went into the fusion of [Arcadia’s Judgement], [Nature’s Punishment]. However, this time, no mountain or tree came crashing down. Instead, something exuding the air of Arcadia shone down upon the world from within the spatial gate.

Zac knew just what kind of terrifying pressure that light emitted. He’d turned a hill even larger than the Sinner Mound into a crater with that light alone after he’d finally evolved [Arcadia’s Judgement] to Peak-mastery. But the Sinner Mound actually resisted the tremendous pressure, even if the top layers of soil and stone were crushed and pushed away.

“That’s a Sinner Mound, alright,” Ogras muttered, and Zac’s eyes widened in shock.

A gargantuan stake piercing through a huge pile of corpses.

That was what hid beneath the soil and oil-like emanations from the mound. The bodies radiated an intensely strong aura of sin, and pitch-black liquid continuously poured out of their mouths and hollow eye sockets. With tens of thousands of bodies, they produced a swimming pool’s worth of gunk every second, which should be impossible, considering how dried and withered they looked.

As for the enormous spike, it was clearly not part of the mound itself. It was created with a deep blue metal and contained a powerful aura of lightning. It was covered in complex runes that made Zac’s soul shudder.

A stake imbued with the wrath of the Heavens, piercing straight at the heart of sin.

The runes seemed to be powered by the lightning bolts to dig deeper into the mound. But the sinister sludge covered the spike, filling the runes with corruption. The Sinner Mound was pushing back, probably trying to remove the spike altogether.

“An array flag, perhaps?” Ogras ventured.

“Seems that way,” Catheya agreed.

Zac hesitated, but he had to make a decision. The skill had already been activated, and he couldn’t delay for too long before he needed to follow through. After all, the glowing gate to Arcadia wasn’t the true face of [Arcadia’s Judgement]. It was still the axe strike.

The wooden hand was even larger than before, and the runes covering it were no longer indistinct. They glowed with mesmerizing light, holding the truths of Life and Conflict. At Peak-mastery, the skill had truly become an avatar of his Daos. The twenty-meter axe was perfection, seemingly a treasure born from nature and the Heavens themselves.

It exuded tremendous power, including a punishing aura that resonated with the spike. The skill had been activated, so judgement was to be meted out. The axe descended, but it didn’t aim for the pile of leaking corpses. Instead, it crashed toward the head of the spike.

Thousands of runes fell through the gate of Arcadia, and they all poured into the stone axe. The emerald runes covering the handle and head lit up with unquestionable might, holding a wrathful aura like it contained the will of the ancient Heavens.

World-ending force slammed into the spike with enough impact to cleave mountains. For a fraction of a second, it was as though the world had frozen before time resumed. A huge scar cut the Sinner Mound in two, hundreds of meters across and just as deep. It formed a canyon over twenty meters across, and the desiccated corpses were simply erased from existence.

But the spike held against Zac’s most powerful attack, as did a glowing red orb that had previously been hidden in the heart of the mound. Looking at the nefarious light made Zac’s heart thump, and he felt a wave of killing intent almost consume him. The feeling disappeared as quickly as it came, the madness quelled by the Void in his heart.

The Sinner Core held, but not for long. Even if [Arcadia’s Judgement] failed to cleave it in two, it acted as a hammer. The thunder spike had been forced more than halfway into the sphere, and Zac could see how incredibly pure arcs of lightning had been injected into the core.

A piercing wail rippled through Sinner’s Lament as the Sinner Core shattered into hundreds of splinters, and Zac’s vision doubled as he almost keeled over. Ogras groaned while a shroud of shadows sealed him inside, while a talisman floating behind Catheya snapped.

“Bounty Claimed. Share: 120 Mana,” Null said, but Zac had no time to celebrate his idea being correct.

The split-apart mound was twisting and frothing, and Zac found himself thrown hundreds of meters away by an enormous eruption of resentment that crushed Catheya’s ice wall.

“A surge! We’re trapped!” Catheya shouted as she crawled to her feet, completely covered in grime after landing in a knee-deep pond of blood.

Zac glanced up at the sky and sighed. The clouds were exhausted after unleashing that bolt of lightning. No help was forthcoming from above. Besides, this surge was different from the ones before. There were no wraiths at all. Instead, the resentment poured into the mound that had already fused back together.

A lot of corpses had been destroyed, but even more crawled up from the depths, their resentment joining to form something terrifying. They couldn’t let the scene continue. Thankfully, his skill was still not over, and he’d held the final component in reserve as long as possible just for something like this.

The ground shook and heaved until a primal fury from the depths of the earth erupted. The ground split apart, and thousands of rune-covered spikes emerged. The reformed mound immediately collapsed again when faced with the wrath of the land it had soiled. A storm of destruction swept through the rocky formation, ripping apart corpses by the thousands.

Yet it wasn’t enough. Zac looked on with helplessness as a stream of new corpses crawled out from the depths. Zac rushed forward, but another wail from the mound conjured a storm of resentment so powerful he couldn’t get closer. He tried to cut it open with a series of fractal leaves, but they were just swallowed and consumed.

A pang of danger forced him to flash out of the way, narrowly avoiding a putrid blade made by the corpses’ black liquid. Zac hesitated whether he should force his way inside, but the storm suddenly abated.

“Of course,” Ogras, who had already caught up, groaned.

The mound was gone, replaced by a macabre construct of innumerable desiccated corpses. It had no set shape, but it looked more like an enormous isopod with dozens of legs than a humanoid. The corpses turned into formable clay upon becoming part of the creature, some being twisted beyond what should be possible to make up a piece of a leg or a claw.

The corpses kept spewing out the black tainted liquid as well. Some of it formed the blades of resentment it kept shooting at them, where even the blades that missed formed putrid pools that made Zac’s hair stand on end. Most liquid stayed on the construct and hardened into a protective shell.

A pang of danger made Zac flash away just as Ogras shouted, “Below!”

The ground had come alive, and an oily fanged maw dripping with resentment had formed right where Zac stood. The attack was like a starting call, and madness gripped the area. Faces, hands, spikes, and pitfalls appeared all around them. Every area within ten meters of where a resentment blade landed had been possessed.

Powerful blades were raining from above, and insidious dangers struck from below. The area had become a true zone of death. The barrage was endless. Even worse, it prevented Zac from focusing on the huge creature that was the source of it all. A vague sense of danger emanated from the thing, and he knew he couldn’t let it accumulate forever.

A wave of frigid cold passed him, instantly freezing the ground where he stood. The ten-fingered claw that had just tried to grip him was trapped in place, leaving Zac completely unencumbered for a moment. He glanced back and saw that a black crown of ice appeared on Catheya’s head as she rose into the air.

Five teardrops with ancient engravings of ice appeared behind her head, and a frigid cold swept out in every direction. In no time, an area of hundreds of meters had been turned into a world of ice. The roiling waves of the lands were frozen solid, the spikes and pitfalls cracking into chunks of dirty ice.

“Deal with the big guy. I’ll try to stop it from gathering more bodies!” Ogras shouted as six wings grew from his back.

The ghastly flag had been fully unfurled, forming a band of anguished faces three meters long. Just looking at the tapestry of suffering made Zac’s soul shudder.

A storm of spears from the flying demon destroyed everything locked within the ice. In an instant, a huge crater over thirty meters deep had been formed, exposing a terrifying truth.

The whole bedrock was now filled with corpses, almost an endless number crawling for the surface. A stream of Ogras’s captured wraiths was already pouring into the hole, dragging bodies out and ripping them apart by the hundreds.

Catheya’s world of ice had already spread into the hole, locking the seeping resentment in place and protecting the wraiths from being assimilated by Sinner’s Lament. The corpses lost some of their unnatural flexibility from the cold, while Ogras’s wraiths remained unaffected.

Zac wasted no time as he flashed through the air, using the floating steps of [Earthstrider] to appear right beneath the creature. A storm of fractal leaves erupted from his body, each one two meters long and imbued with both War Axe and Kalpataru.

The corpse construct emitted an unstable aura approaching Middle D-grade, but the shell of corruption it had created couldn’t defend against the unstoppable force trapped inside the fractal leaves. Huge chunks of black oil and dry flesh were carved out of the creature, falling like rain all around him.

A huge, twisted face formed on the creature’s stomach, and dozens of sinner blades shot at Zac. Unfortunately for the enormous creature, Zac was far too agile in his human form. Another patch of grass appeared beneath his foot as he took another step in the air. The next moment, he appeared over a hundred meters away, right behind the creature.

The monster was already forming another layer of corruption around its wounds, but Zac didn’t care. The outburst from [Nature’s Edge] had destroyed hundreds of corpses, shrinking the construct by almost 10%. And he wasn’t finished there. Four powerful vines stabbed into the ground, giving Zac some upward momentum to keep him in the air a bit longer. Simultaneously, a hundred-meter leaf appeared in front of [Verun’s Bite].

The blade was almost as tall as the creature and contained the truths of the Abyss and Arcadia. The blade fell, and the world was delineated. A spatial divide cut the huge creature in two, creating a ten-meter-wide corridor of nothingness. The blade lingered for a few seconds, disintegrating any corpses that tried to move toward the other side of the unbridgeable chasm of [Rapturous Divide].

But the skill couldn’t last forever. Zac looked up at the creature as he landed on a platform of ice formed by Catheya, and had to immediately flash away to avoid dozens of sinner blades. The two halves were already fusing into a whole, though they had shrunk once more. Zac grunted with annoyance.

If the construct refused to die, he’d just have to keep swinging until there was nothing left to reform.

Ten minutes later, Zac panted atop a frozen pile of broken flesh, almost half of his Cosmic Energy consumed. Ultimately, he hadn’t found any better method than methodically cutting the creature down until no corpses were left. There were no weaknesses to the construct, and none of the three managed to find anything like a core of its energy.

The punishing thunder ultimately hadn’t come to their rescue, though the corpses were thankfully possible to permanently destroy, unlike the resentment wraiths.

“Nothing,” Ogras swore as he appeared next to Zac. “I was almost sure the shards of the Sinner Core fueled it.”

“Maybe it was, but the pieces dissolved before we could find them,” Catheya guessed. “After all, we dealt with this thing in the crudest way possible.”

“Now that we know what to expect, we should be able to snatch the pieces before they disappear. That might prevent the construct from forming altogether,” Zac said.

“How did you know to hit the spike before?” Catheya asked curiously.

“So far, we haven’t managed to destroy any wraiths, except when using items empowered by thunder.” Zac shrugged. “I was worried the Sinner Core would share the same properties and reform even if I cut it. It seemed more prudent to target the spike that was full of the aura of lightning.”

“What now?” Ogras asked as he turned to Catheya. “Can we use that array of yours?”

The array of Sinner Crystals soon appeared, but she shook her head soon after.

“Not from here, at least,” Catheya said. “We’re most likely too far away. The energy in the crystals can’t reach very far. The compass should be able to reach further during a surge, but I’m not sure the ambient energy is enough. We may need a powerful sacrifice of resentment to work.”

“A sacrifice?” Zac said. “So, more crystals, or what?”

“Exactly. The more crystals we sacrifice, the greater the range.”

“Then we need to gather crystals to find mounds, but the more crystals we gather, the more waves of wraiths we’ll have to endure.”

“Just so,” Catheya nodded.

“Seems straightforward enough. The harder we work, the more mounds we’ll find,” Ogras shrugged. “I guess we can rest when this is all over.”

17

KEYS OF ASCENSION

Zac released a long pent-up sigh of relief as he stumbled out of the teleportation array, appearing in Vastness City. The gate closed behind him, and Zac was finally free from that wretched place. Only then did he truly realize just how grimy he was. He was covered almost from head to toe in blood and corruption and literally oozed sinister energies into his surroundings. Even the angry scars on his body almost glowed.

A few people curiously looked over as Zac appeared, but seeing a wretched-looking human was all too common in this place. Too many looked like they’d been hit by a truck when coming back from their missions. Besides, it was close to the end of the month. Those who wanted to duel would have finished their fights already, so no one tried to urge him to leave the protected teleportation square.

Ogras and Catheya had teleported straight home to their manors. The twenty-one days in Sinner’s Lament had completely wrung them dry, to the point Zac had been forced to carry them to the exit.

For three weeks, the assaults never relented. It didn’t matter if they didn’t harvest so much as a single Sinner Crystal. Within two hours, they would be attacked all the same. And they’d soon found out that without farming a decent chunk of crystals, they’d fall behind on rent. Stress kept building as corruption accumulated, and there was never any time to recover. At least not if they wanted to make Mana.

Even with Catheya’s method to localize the Sinner Mounds, they barely managed to find and destroy one mound a day. The rest was spent gathering Sinner Crystals, withstanding surges, and trying to take some fitful bouts of rest. At least the rewards were pretty good.

Twenty-two Sinner Mounds meant a total bounty of 6,600 Mana. After deducting twenty-one days’ worth of fees, they were left with a profit of 2,505 Mana. Of that, Zac had earned just over 1,000, while Catheya and Ogras shared around 750 each. Unfortunately, that meant Zac had stalled out at 9,803 Mana, just shy of reaching the first echelon.

Zac had gained the biggest share simply because he’d been responsible for dealing with most of the mounds and withstanding a larger part of the surges. However, his share was only so much bigger than the others because Ogras and Catheya were needed to profit. Catheya had figured out the method of finding the mounds, and her Dao of Ice was integral to quickly dealing with them.

Meanwhile, Ogras had proven incredibly efficient at gathering Sinner Crystals, especially after successfully raising the first resentment wraiths. He used his shadows and the [Shadewar Flag] to carefully extract crystals from the ground and various structures. His method didn’t release nearly as much resentment, which allowed them to avoid a few surges a day while collecting crystals to localize mounds.

Apart from the Mana, only Ogras managed to find some benefits. Sinner Crystals, shards of Sinner Cores, and incredibly foul plants that had taken root in the center of the zone all went to the demon for experimentation with his flag. Zac and Catheya couldn’t find anything useful, though they harvested some Lightning-attributed metals to trade or sell.

It was an important reminder that even Catheya was a newcomer in this place and didn’t have all the answers. The mission sounded suitable from the description, but it proved to be quite a chore with no benefits for their core formations. Sinner’s Lament was more suited for Hexers, Summoners, and Lightning cultivators than their trio.

Altogether, Zac felt the experience reminiscent of the higher levels in the Tower of Eternity. Completing the tasks required certain skills and understanding, and Zac, back then, had been forced to brute-force every level. Here, that method was impossible. Even if he had strength to spare, so what? It wouldn’t help destroy any more Sinner Mounds.

In fact, Zac wasn’t confident he’d have broken even on the mission if he went at it alone, relying on his Luck and Endurance to scour Sinner’s Lament in search of bounties. Even after weeks of digging through the ruins, Zac only managed to form a vague idea that the position of the cities and mounds wasn’t completely random. There was a pattern, though Zac was still far from extrapolating any useful information from his hunch.

Zac now better understood why so many top-tier characters in the Perennial Vastness chose to set up coalitions. One person couldn’t know everything, so joining up with people with complementary skillsets would increase their Mana gain even if they worked with weaker companions.

It was a shame that Ventus was about to leave. A numerologist was probably a huge asset in this place. At least they had the [Perennial Transformations], which was already in Catheya’s hands. Zac had been too busy dealing with the wave of wraiths while Catheya and Ogras recovered to bother with the book, but Catheya had spent the better part of the month reading.

She’d hoped to use the secrets within to improve their results for the quest, but the theories proved too complex to learn in a day or two. Judging by her engrossed face as she poured over the endless numbers and patterns on the pages, the book was the real deal.

Zac didn’t return to his storefront. Instead, he entered a rest area by the teleporter, where he borrowed an empty room. A full hour later, Zac emerged clean and mostly refreshed, and he went straight back toward the teleportation square.

‘Keys of Ascension,’ Zac said in his mind as he touched a pillar, and a path opened straight away.

Zac passed through the gate, and a cloud of incredibly dense energy greeted him. It was completely different from the disgusting gunk he’d suffered in Sinner’s Lament. In fact, it was almost the opposite. His exhausted mind felt invigorated and clear. The small amounts of lingering resentment from Sinner’s Lament were soon stripped away.

The Keys of Ascension was a special Green Zone included in the free trials and one of the places Ogras visited before the mission. Zac found himself at a platform floating in a sea of clouds, with an ancient stone bridge ahead. Two people were crossing, but they ignored Zac as they stepped up to another teleportation pillar next to his.

A moment later, they were gone, leaving Zac alone to marvel at the impossibly large structure. Zac felt he was looking at an Escher painting come to life, stretching thousands of meters into the sky. He couldn’t even tell what shape it held. One moment it seemed like a cube, but it was a sphere after Zac blinked. It contained tens of thousands of rooms, buildings, statues, and all kinds of random features, each moving about in defiance of any logic based on three-dimensional thinking.

Zac wasn’t sure if the Perennial Vastness had built this thing or if it had picked it up like so many other of its opportunities. It didn’t matter to Zac as he started toward the construct. What mattered was that the Keys of Ascension had the best cultivation chambers in the whole Perennial Vastness.

Zac had been given twelve hours of free access. After that, it would cost a whopping 500 Mana an hour, proving just how valuable the zone was. It could be considered the most valuable of all the free trials, and guests generally thought it a small accommodation because almost everyone who arrived had the same idea as Zac and Ogras. People were hoarding breakthroughs. With the Keys of Ascension, people could get that part out of the way and instead focus on gathering Mana and improving their blueprints.

The enormous structure didn’t get any easier to understand even as Zac approached, but Ogras had already shared the experience of his visit. The moment Zac reached the edge of the bridge, he released his Branch of the Kalpataru while starting to recite his Void Sutras. Zac felt a pull, and he curiously followed the calling as he walked toward the keys.

Rooms kept appearing and disappearing, whole castles came and went in the blink of an eye. Then the confusing blur started to stabilize until Zac found a set of golden stairs waiting for him. He didn’t hesitate as he stepped onto it, and his surroundings shifted. The bridge leading to the teleporters was gone, and he found himself in the middle of the confusing mesh.

Statues, arches, towers, and all kinds of buildings danced around him, each holding incredibly pure and powerful truths. It all blended together in a tapestry akin to the Heavens themselves. Zac didn’t let himself be distracted. He never stopped channeling his Dao, and he kept most of his attention on the stairs. This place wasn’t dangerous, but it wouldn’t hold your hand.

If you stepped off the path or got confused by the powerful Daos, you might find yourself lost among the Keys of Ascension. Let alone wasting your twelve hours of subsidized experience, you might even end up deep in debt before you managed to find your way out.

His ears roared with foreign yet enticing Daos, yet Zac staunchly took the next step as it was created. Sometimes it felt like he was walking upside down. Other times he felt inverted. He ignored his senses and kept on until he reached a small golden pagoda. It was simple and unadorned, except for two statues depicting tranquil flames to the side of the entrance.

Zac breathed out in relief, and the chaos outside died down upon ascending its seven steps. The temple looked quite small on the outside, yet it was over one hundred meters across within. The floor was neither tiled nor made from wood. It was rather made up of a sea of gold nuggets ranging from the size of pebbles to fists.

Floating above were innumerable motes of golden Life. The scene almost made Zac feel like he was walking into a grill or a cauldron, and that feeling was only reinforced upon passing the gates. An incredible wave of heat hit him when he stepped inside, a heat far beyond most of the volcanoes he’d visited.

Yet, it didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. The heat was filled to the brim with the Dao of Life, and his partially Life-attuned Constitution was enkindled rather than damaged. To his normal vision, there was no heat source in the temple, but the situation was very different upon activating [Cosmic Gaze].

In the middle of the temple, there was an empty circle. With his Dao-attuned gaze, he could see a raging golden fire within—a true Spiritual Flame of Life, completely unblemished and untainted by the Peak of the Grand Materia. The walls were covered in runes resonating with his path, but their function was clearly just to contain the incredible power hidden within that central flame.

Thankfully, there was not a hint of the Sangha in the chamber. The original method of [Boundless Vajra Sublimation] strongly recommended cultivating inside powerful Dharmic Flames, such as the Samadhi True Flames. Therefore, Zac knew the Keys of Ascension would produce a cultivation chamber with flames because of his chants, and he’d been worried he’d be forced to deal with pathbreaking Dharma while breaking through.

As luck would have it, the Keys of Ascension produced a chamber with an invisible flame of Pure Life, almost reminiscent of the Void.

None among the guests knew whether the rooms were created in one’s image to so perfectly match their cultivation methods or if the confusing mesh of chambers held far more rooms than one could imagine. Remembering the incredible scenes outside, Zac wasn’t any closer to the answer either.

Zac cast away any doubts and confusions, focusing on what was important.

It was time to break through with the [Void Vajra Sublimation].

In a perfect world, he would also have used the Keys of Ascension to break through with his [Nine Reincarnations Manual]. Unfortunately, the breakthroughs of his soul took quite a while. Just the first step required him to channel the full cycle, and most breakthroughs had taken a couple of days. There was no way he’d manage to break through in twelve hours, and he didn’t have the luxury of spending all his Mana on this zone. Thankfully, he already had a plan for his soul, so it wasn’t like he was out of options.

Zac let his mind fuse with the surroundings as he walked toward the central circle. He was fast becoming Life in its purest form. The dancing motes around him, the nuggets beneath his feet. It all filled him with inspiration. Every breath took him further away from the harsh environment of Sinner’s Lament and gave him the gift of Life. Even if Zac somehow failed with his breakthrough, he would most likely leave with a hundred years of recovered longevity.

One piece of clothing after another was stripped and put away, which brought Zac even closer to the Dao. His movements were slow and deliberate, yet filled with meaning. It was like the Dao of Life guided his hands. His mind soon emptied of everything except the Dao of Life and the [Void Vajra Sublimation].

Everything else faded away. His struggles, his worries, his past, and his future. In comparison, Zac felt the [Void Vajra Sublimation] had never been as clear in his mind, not even when he created it with the truths of Ultom. The environment in the Keys of Ascension obviously couldn’t compare to an Eternal Heritage, but the light of Ultom was bereft of Dao.

Here, the Dao of Life was infused into his understanding, like color suddenly added to a black and white image.

Zac painted one rune after another onto his body, each imbued and perfected by the golden motes fusing into them. Soon, he was covered from head to toe, glowing like a golden Buddha. He took a deep breath and stepped into the central circle. The scorching heat of the invisible flames licked his skin, but the flames that would instantly have incinerated most E-grade cultivators only helped activate the medicinal paste on his skin.

The chants of Void echoed in his mind. Zac didn’t know if a minute or an hour had passed, but he felt the world align. Zac’s eyes shot open, and he took his first step toward Minor Sublimation.

The whole room shook as he stomped on the ground, and the lazy motes of golden light in the temple kicked into a frenzy. Life surged to unprecedented heights, creating a powerful restrictive force. Yet years of arduous practice had made heart and body as stable as mountains, and he smoothly finished the first stance.

Like the two previous times he broke through, a rune holding an aspect of Life was left behind. Only this time, it didn’t feel like a feature made real by his heart alone. It shone in gold, seemingly instilled with the very essence of the Heavens. There was nothing intangible about the rune—it was so real it almost made the rest of the temple feel lacking in corporeity.

An unending stream of Life poured into the rune, and Zac was inwardly relieved he’d chosen to wait rather than breaking through back on Earth. The quantity and quality of truths the rune absorbed from the temple far surpassed what he’d be able to produce back home, no matter how many Divine Crystals or Natural Treasures he took out.

Even if he’d managed to break through, it wouldn’t be as perfect as it would here, just like he’d barely squeaked by in some of his breakthroughs of the soul. The cost of 500 Mana an hour was steep, but Zac felt it was definitely worth it as one golden rune after another appeared inside the Spiritual Flames.

Two hours later, Zac’s hands clasped together, forming the 189th and final Sutra of the third layer. Each one contained enough energy to turn a Hegemon into ash. Together, they formed a cocoon of Life, the key to his transformation into a Life-attuned Constitution.

Though the runes didn’t fuse into the body themselves. Zac could feel how they resisted the pull, almost like the Heavens were trying to prevent its secrets from being stolen. Zac already knew this would happen, and not a ripple could be seen on his face as he started to pull.

Having completed a full cycle of Minor Sublimation, Zac had fully entered the ethereal state of the Void. His will was unbendable, and the runes were dragged closer and closer while a storm of Life raged through the temple.

Finally, the runes touched his body, branding themselves on his skin and forming another set of mysterious pathways. For a moment, Zac felt like he’d formed a bridge between the Heavens and himself, and a sense of awe overcame him as he peered at the very heart of the Dao of Life.

Marvel soon turned into pain. Unbelievable pain and a sense of impending disaster.

18

MISGIVINGS

Suffering was a constant companion on the journey of Body Refinement. The agony Zac had to endure to forcibly push through three layers of the [Void Vajra Sublimation] in a couple of years would’ve been enough to break the spirits of most cultivators. Yet that was nothing compared to the pain now wracking his body.

Millions of tendrils burrowed into him like flesh-eating maggots, each one a stab at his body, mind, and heart, chipping away at Zac’s conviction and sanity. The currents of divinity were uncaring about his suffering, spreading like wildfire through his body now that they’d been forcibly dragged from the Heavens.

It seemed like the energies were more interested in destroying than reforming, an eager match to gasoline upon encountering the powerful golden swirls in the depths of his cells. Before, there had been order to the tremendous power hiding those miniature storms. Now, chaos was unleashed as his body tried not just to paint the cells golden but to turn them into actual gold.

Was this punishment for going against the natural order, trying to steal Life from the Cosmos? The bridge to Heaven collapsed, its foundations cracked and in disorder. Zac was left standing on the other shores, seeing what he’d built over the past years be consumed by the raging fire of the glowing runes.

Had he been wrong? He’d been so sure the method he’d created with the truth of Ultom would work with his constitution, and nothing he’d experienced during his years of diligent practice had given him cause to think otherwise. Now, Zac found himself dealing with what seemed to be a state of mutual rejection between method and body.

Should he give up?

The thought was small and fleeting, yet it created huge waves in his mind. Zac’s heart shuddered, and the golden runes flickered before he could rein it in. Even then, his ethereal state was damaged, and new suspicions and worries replaced the ones he’d pushed down. Zac did what he could to regain his meditative state. He was in trouble. The [Void Vajra Sublimation] was based on the heart, so when the heart wavered, so did the method. This couldn’t go on.

Zac gritted his teeth, and the world dimmed. He’d activated [Void Zone] in the middle of his breakthrough in an effort to forcibly recalibrate his state of mind. Thankfully, the method was fused with the Void. The runes across his body only lost a little bit of energy after being drenched in Void Energy, and the invisible flames readily replenished what he lost.

Most importantly, the sudden wave of nothingness calmed his frayed heart, allowing him to analyze the problem calmly. The method clearly indicated a tipping point where resistance became acceptance. Heavens and Earth would become one, and external would become internal. He just needed to maintain his Heart of Void, continuing to pilfer from the Heavens until he reached that point.

And while the method was more dangerous and agonizing than he’d expected, he could tell he was getting closer. He no longer wielded Life. He was fast becoming Life. Even with eyes closed, Zac could feel his body shine with divine light, like a golden statue.

If it was just pain, he could endure it. This kind of violent reaction wasn’t mentioned in the method, but it could have explanations other than a failed breakthrough. His attributes and Vigor were far beyond the norm because of his Draugr half and various experiences, just as his cells could contain far more energy than normal because of his bloodline. It was also possible his body had a harder time than normal accepting an attunement because he lacked the affinities to pave the way.

How could that stop him? He was the inheritor of a bloodline so powerful the System itself targeted it. He wouldn’t let a minor bottleneck on a Body Tempering Method impede him. Even if convention and logic told him no, so what? As long as he held on to his path, he’d make the impossible possible. This was just like when using [Bloodline Resonance] to get control over his Bloodline Talents. Sometimes, you just have to keep going.

Yet, the poisonous thoughts crept back as Life continued to pour into his body. Words of caution, of not giving in to sunk-cost fallacy as he ran toward a dead end. That there was just too much energy inside the 189 golden runes that still glowed with inexhaustible divinity.

Not even his cells could accommodate this much force, and the temple was inexhaustible in its accommodation. Zac was just reforging his body, not forming a Cosmic Core. Even his danger sense started to indicate imminent doom as his cells began to show cracks from the overload.

It was like a volcano had been trapped inside his body as Zac furiously condensed, purified, and suppressed with his Dao and his determination. Yet, he found it harder and harder to hold on. The agony consumed all thought, and he could tell the runes were only halfway consumed even when he teetered on the brink of collapse.

He had no option but to activate [Void Zone] again. Not to recover his state of mind but to let his cells rest and stabilize for a few seconds. When he deactivated the talent, the Dao of Life had been pushed deeper and integrated further with the core of his being. This cycle continued for a while, with Zac forced to make things up as things came, using everything from his bloodline and his Dao to forcibly quell some spillover with Spiritual Ice.

Then, his closed eyes snapped open in horror.

“No!” Zac roared as he tried activating [Void Zone] in a panic.

It was too late. The threshold had been reached, but not in the way it was supposed to. The volcano brewing in his body erupted, its fury and ferocity so intense that Zac lost the connection to his bloodline. He was unable to even move as he found himself trapped by the glowing runes. The cocoon of his transformation had turned into his prison.

Blinding cracks spread across his fingers, then his arms, releasing plumes of bloody mist that were instantly burned by the invisible flames. The cracks covered his whole body in an instant, a situation far beyond anything even the splinters had created. They reached the very depth of his body—trillions of cells, trillions of fractures.

And then it all collapsed.

Zac screamed with horror, yet not a sound was made as his body exploded into a mottled dust cloud that was pushed to the corners of the sealed temple. As Zac’s body was destroyed, so were his thoughts. There was no past, no future—only the glowing warmth of Life. The feeling was a blanket on his soul, a comforting one rather than suffocating.

If he accepted this new phase of existence, he would become one with the cosmos and the Heavenly Dao. Yet a powerful wave of repulsion made the dust shudder. Zac wasn’t ready to give in. His determination acted like a beacon, gathering his scattered thoughts. With his soul spread through the cloud, he started to pull. And as Zac pulled, he held onto his Dao Heart.

His perception shifted, and the cosmos was suddenly held at bay. Between the unceasing fount of divinity and himself was an impassable wall of demarcation. He was once more the Void, looking in at Life from the outside. And he started taking what he needed. Zac refused to consider defeat or surrender, even for a moment.

So, he’d exploded. It wasn’t good, but he was still alive. And the dust was somehow connected to him, allowing him to impose his will on it. He would survive this tribulation, even if he had to create a body akin to Ubu’s, the Life Elemental he met inside the Orom World.

From there, he could figure out how to return to a fleshy state. He was already planning on doing the same for Alea, so what was one more body? He might even be able to create it right away with Creation Energy after the situation stabilized. One thing was for sure, though. No matter what, he wouldn’t give up.

Zac had too many people relying on him, too many goals left unfinished. So what if he became a walking cloud of Life only held together by sheer force of will? It wouldn’t impede his path. As though agitated by his thoughts, the dust churned and roiled as it started being dragged back toward the circle of invisible flames. Like a pilgrimage, where the pieces of his broken self returned to their origin.

And on the way, the mottled dust took in the ambient Life of the temple. And just as Zac took what he wanted with his Heart of Void, so did he repel what he didn’t need. As a result, the dust started shedding, their mottled exteriors replaced by gold far more radiant than the motes of Life dancing around.

Eventually, the first swirls of dust hesitantly entered the invisible flames. The cloud shuddered and smoke of various colors separated from the dust. Black, grey, green. Small oily drops were also formed, falling like a profane rain toward the golden nuggets below. But no matter whether it was mist or oil, black, red, or green, it was all incinerated by the invisible flame of Life.

Zac vaguely sensed the transformations taking place and furiously held onto his conviction. To reform what was broken. To continue down his path. And in response, a shape started to form in the center of the circle. It wasn’t a hand or a head, but rather the first rune of the [Void Vajra Sublimation].

This time, it wasn’t made from medicinal paste or his Heart. It was made from the broken-down and purified rubble of Zac’s body. It was completely without blemish, a perfected expression of Life. One after another, more golden runes bloomed under the nourishment of his heart. And with every rune forming, Zac felt his scattered thoughts congeal. Almost like an imaginary wall made from his Dao Heart kept his soul in place, gently guiding it back together.

Eventually, 189 runes of purest Life formed an outline of a being. One grand cycle for the Heavens and one for the Earth. Joined together by the nine minor wheels of Life, one body of divinity perfected. It was still just a hollow pattern, but only half of the dust had entered the Spiritual Flame circle by this point. More refined dust was being pulled in by the second. As long as Zac kept going, something akin to a body would form.

The moment the final rune was perfected, Zac heard a bell in the depths of his mind. Unprecedented clarity was followed by a stream of new information. It wasn’t an epiphany that came from his reinforcing his path. It was like the cultivation method in his mind had unfurled like a flower bud, displaying previously hidden pieces. A grand voice echoed through his mind, filled with power and compassion.

‘Only by surrendering the self can the one become the Boundless Cosmos. Only through a Heart of Dao can the Boundless Cosmos become the one. Sublimation through rebirth. Reality subject to an eternal will. The path of the immutable Varja.’

‘Sublimation through rebirth,’ Zac thought, the hidden despair in the depths of his heart swept away, replaced by anticipation.

With the hidden chapter of the method unfurled, Zac finally understood what was happening. There was a hidden tribulation at the threshold of the Minor Sublimation—a tribulation of the Heart. The breakthrough would only continue if your Heart was firm enough, even in the face of disaster.

If it failed, your soul would gradually disperse in the clouds. If inside a Buddhist domain, your essence could be reformed into a Dharmic Will, which could be infused into a statue or a Dharmic Treasure. For someone like Zac, it simply meant death.

Zac had no idea why the hidden danger hadn’t shown itself even when he reforged the method with the truth of Ultom, but he wasn’t too disappointed. He could feel how his Dao Heart had made a breakthrough even before his body, reaching a state akin to the Integration Stage of technique. Like a metal, a Dao Heart could only be tempered when put into the fire, whether it was life-and-death encounters or significant setbacks to their cultivation.

If Zac had known he was supposed to disintegrate, he would just have focused on the next step, and his heart wouldn’t have aligned as well with his path. And from the information, Zac could tell the heart was the key to passing the Minor Sublimation. Only when one’s will was powerful enough to alter reality and control the dust could you reforge your body.

This wasn’t a hidden trap of the Sangha but rather a way to increase the rate of success of their practitioners at the expense of the ones lacking Fate. The unexpected pain, the growing sense of unease, and finally, the collapse. It was all there to trigger and temper the practitioner’s Heart. If their Dao Hearts couldn’t withstand the despair of having their body collapse, they wouldn’t be able to finish the second half of the breakthrough in either case.

Heart was the key. What he believed real, was real. What his heart deemed false, was false. Everything was in place.

Of course, he still needed to complete this breakthrough before celebrating. Just understanding the situation didn’t mean he could relax. The avatar made from runes was still hollow, and the burst of information had created waves in his heart.

Some of the runes had already destabilized, while the remaining dust started scattering. Zac reaffirmed his heart, spreading his will through the temple. The process resumed and sped up until nine separate swirls entered the invisible flames simultaneously. Seven entered gates that had appeared on his body from the top of his head down to his groin. The final two entered through the hands of the runes, which formed the closing mudra of the [Void Vajra Sublimation].

As the purified dust entered his body, it was dust no longer. Under the transformations of his heart, veins and bones were forged. Then came organs, each one glistening with Life like a Natural Treasure. Eventually, a golden statue sat within the invisible flames, perfect and fully formed. The dust was expended, the impurities banished.

He was whole.

Zac stood and walked out of the flame, but he didn’t get dressed. Instead, he touched his Spatial Ring, and a small vial appeared in his hand. It was the drops Iz had gifted him after his first breakthrough of the Body Tempering Method. Zac carefully swallowed a single drop then hurried back to the central ring, afraid to lose his current state of mind.

One drop wasn’t his limit, but there were only six drops remaining in the small vial. He needed to save some for his other projects, and he had the time to stabilize his breakthrough inside the Perennial Vastness.

He let himself continue to be annealed in the flames of Life for a while longer while studying the updated [Void Vajra Sublimation]. Between the incredible temple that had facilitated such a perfect breakthrough and his elevated state of mind, Zac was in a state of utmost clarity and certainty.

Previously unclear parts of the fourth layer of the [Void Vajra Sublimation] were unraveled and fixed, getting closer and closer to a workable method. Only when he heard a soft ding did he slowly open his eyes.

“Thirty minutes, like you asked,” Null reminded.

“Thank you.” Zac smiled.

He was still some ways from finalizing the fourth layer of the method, but the Keys of Ascension wasn’t the place to finish that work. It was far too expensive and using it for anything but breaking through was a waste of Mana.

Zac looked down at his body. He was still golden and glowing with the lines of Life, but the radiance receded into the depths of his cells with a thought. Normal flesh replaced the golden metallic hue. That didn’t mean his body had lost anything, neither did it mean his Void Vajra Constitution had entered a dormant state.

In a sense, his body couldn’t be fully considered one of flesh anymore. He was moving closer to a Dao Body, something cultivators normally only gained after stepping into Monarchy. By that point, their true being was the world they nurtured inside their body, while their outer body could be considered a projection of themselves.

Still, his body wasn’t entirely flesh either. With a thought, a series of runes appeared across his arms as his skin turned golden. A moment later, the markings were gone. Zac nodded in satisfaction. His heart dictated what was real and what wasn’t. If his heart said his body was flesh and looked human, it would.

Zac felt like his body had become a treasure trove of hidden benefits, and he began unearthing them as he always did—by opening his Status Screen.

[Life] Void Vajra Sublimation (Third Layer): Base Attributes +50. Vitality +500. Endurance +250. Base Attributes +5%, Vitality +5%. Effect of Vitality +10%.

19

COMING HOME

The boost to Zac’s attributes was mostly expected, though the new improvement to Base Attributes was a welcome surprise. The increases didn’t change much for Zac by this point, but you obviously wouldn’t say no to free power. Unfortunately, awakening a constitution didn’t provide a title, just like his Soul Cultivation and Technique hadn’t.

Some gains were benefits on their own. Besides, Zac guessed these specialized forms of cultivation weren’t really part of the System’s training regimen. The System was there to mass-produce warriors through levels and grades. Ultimately, it was still more efficient to push more cultivators with weaker foundations to higher grades on a macro scale. Raising peak existences that could push toward the limits of cultivation was ultimately a matter of chance.

Elites would always strive to go beyond the bare minimum in either case and didn’t need the System’s handholding every step of the way. If anything, that could probably backfire, like how Iz couldn’t let her extremely powerful elders explain every step of cultivation for her. Some things needed to be discovered by yourself.

Zac’s attributes weren’t the only gains of his breakthrough. His body felt incredibly light, and his Cosmic Energy flowed without impediments. His whole body was in nigh-perfect condition, completely unsullied by the taint of Earthly matter. He remembered how much putrid oil and multi-colored clouds had been released and incinerated as he reformed.

No wonder the method strongly recommended breaking through within a Spirit Flame, especially a Life-attuned one. The clouds and drops were impurities lodged in the very depths of his cells. Pill Toxins, dregs from Natural Treasures, sequela from wounds. Even just the ambient impurities of being a cultivator of the frontier.

It was all removed at a level rivaling his baptisms by Tribulation Lightning. And there was a lot of it. Zac hadn’t held back on using treasures to speed up his body and soul constitution since secluding himself. His soul, especially, was built on a mountain of Life and Death-attuned treasures that allowed him to keep pace with the unimaginably powerful Moss Crystals.

Normally, a cultivator progressing like that was akin to sacrificing their future. Still, Zac dared do so because of [Purity of the Void] and the upcoming Tribulation Lightning from entering Hegemony on the Boundless Path. Now, he was given a baptism ahead of time, a small bonus that would hopefully make his other breakthroughs smoother.

His Cosmic Energy stores had increased by at least 20%, which meant his Void Energy had also increased by 20%. His pathways had become sturdier, and Zac felt each cell was a small sun. Even his stores of Vigor and its natural recovery had improved, a welcome fuel that’d allow him to use his Draugr Hidden Nodes to much greater effect.

Zac teemed with Life, which would help with his body’s natural healing rate. It would also improve his resistance to almost any form of attack, from poisons to foreign Daos. He obviously wasn’t at the level of the ancient Body cultivators who could reform their bodies from a single drop of blood, but he suspected that even lost limbs would regrow given enough time.

Most interesting was perhaps the new realm his Dao Heart reached. The hidden burst of information had, for the first time, explained the three realms of the Heart the [Boundless Vajra Sublimation] nurtured. The first realm, and the one he’d reached upon passing the first major threshold, was called Boundless Self.

The stage of Boundless Self allowed his Dao Heart to impose its will upon his body. A poignant example of this was how the broken pieces had recovered and become healthy flesh through a magical transformation Zac didn’t understand. Of course, this didn’t mean he’d gained the ability to take any form he wanted.

Boundless Self made what was true real, but not everything was true. For example, he couldn’t suddenly turn himself into an elephant or a thousand-meter Beast King. Neither could he will himself into Hegemony. No matter how much he wanted to sweep through the grades, he knew he was currently in the E-grade.

Being a Hegemon wasn’t true. Therefore, it couldn’t be made real. But his being human was true in his heart of hearts. As such, his body was human, which was further proved by the fact that his Status Screen hadn’t changed.

This kind of transcendent state would come with other benefits as well. The original version allowed your heart to accept outside Daos and influences without letting the self go astray. In Zac’s case, he nurtured a state of Void Self than a Boundless Self. He would have to try it out, but he believed his natural resistance to the path of powerful cultivators or environments would increase.

This probably increased his resistance against the pathbreaking Dharma of the Buddhist Sangha, which was extremely convenient with his manor being in the middle of a Dharmic storm.

The second realm of the Heart would arrive at the Major Sublimation and was called Boundless Domain. At that level, your heart didn’t just see through truths and falsehoods of the self but everything you laid your eyes upon. Illusions would be nigh-useless when faced with someone who had reached Boundless Domain.

Finally, upon cultivating the method to the end of the ninth layer, you’d give birth to the True Boundless Heart. Nothing was mentioned about that stage, but it was obviously incredibly powerful. Of course, passing the final layer of the method was almost impossible. Just completing the first layer put you in the top percentile of all who cultivated the method.

To completely master it? There were probably just a handful of those people in the whole Sangha.

The one thing that hadn’t improved was his affinity. Even now, Zac didn’t feel any closer to the Dao. Trying to absorb some of the ambient energy also failed, proving he still lacked that mysterious connection with the surroundings that allowed cultivators to drag energy out of the air.

Zac was simultaneously relieved and disappointed things had stayed the same on that front. He still held on to some small desire to become a “true” cultivator, though it would come with huge drawbacks. The most notable of which was that his core would no longer work since it depended on his lack of affinities to incorporate the Void.

In that regard, Zac felt he’d made the right decision in breaking through. Before, the inherent Death-attunement of his Draugr heritage was much stronger than his Life-attunement. Now, his human side had passed his yet-unawakened Draugr bloodline. Still, the difference was not as big as it was before.

If his Draugr side had been inherently 30% more impressive since drinking the [Essence of the Abyss] compared to his second layer Void Vajra Constitution, then his human side was now roughly 15% stronger. And with his human side better suited to restrain the Inexorable Core and form the Evolutionary Core, he was in a much better position for his future undertaking.

With everything dealt with, it was time to go. Null’s earlier warning meant his free trial of the Keys of Ascension was about to run out. And like any self-respecting money-grubbing enterprise, the Perennial Vastness charged for the whole hour at the start of the hour. Zac left the inner circle, only then realizing he’d barely felt the heat of the invisible flame since breaking through.

Zac’s robes, rings, and other items were lying in a neat pile by the exit, and he quickly dressed. The confusing blur of paths and Daos greeted him as he emerged, but Zac’s heart was as steady as bedrock as he descended the golden stairs forming in front of him. The surrounding structures and their disorienting movements were no longer enough to confuse him. He even took the opportunity to look around as he descended, taking in the beauty of the possibilities presented by the Daos.

Fifteen minutes later, Zac emerged from the keys and stepped onto the bridge after giving the marvelous structure a final look.

“I guess it’s time to see how my home base turned out,” Zac said upon reaching the exit.

“You sure?” Null giggled. “Getting pretty confident after one breakthrough.”

Initially, Zac had planned on only returning after breaking through both his Soul and Constitution. Now, Zac felt it wasn’t needed. The protection against the Sangha’s Dharma he’d gained from reaching Boundless Self, or rather Void Self, was much greater than what he’d gain from breaking through the next layer of the [Nine Reincarnations Manual].

After all, the pathbreaking aspect of the Buddhist Sangha wasn’t some mind poison that harmed the soul. Its danger came from the beauty of a vast path approaching perfection, encompassing all Daos and beings. It was so easy to get swept up in the truths of the Pure Lands and their limitless power.

Of course, Null had a point. It wouldn’t do to jump in blindly. And he had technically exploded just hours ago. Something like that was enough to create a Heart Demon, even if it was an opportunity disguised as a calamity.

Zac spent the last ten minutes of his free trial on stabilizing his mind, including using [Void Zone] a few times while no one was around.

“Alright, take me to my manor,” Zac said after the ten minutes were up, placing his hand on the teleportation pillar.

The pillar split in two, but there was no hint of what was going on the other side. There was only a glimmering swirl in gold, steel, and black. That didn’t mean something was wrong, but that portals leading to manors had a privacy filter. Zac stepped through and found himself in a large living room with a similar design to his storefront.

If not for the incredibly dense energies, he’d have thought he’d been returned to Vastness City. The Samsara Energy was so dense that small golden numinous clouds floated in the corners and rafters of the room like large mothballs. Looking at them filled him with wonder, even causing his elevated Dao Heart to ripple.

Zac was still delighted to find the truths inside the ambient atmosphere slightly muted, even without him running his Dao Fields. Part of it was undoubtedly thanks to his approaching the first echelon already. He could tell there was a weak hint of discordance emitted from the manor itself, destabilizing the Buddhist Path on the mountain.

His gaze turned to the six pillars that held up the ten-meter ceiling. They were identical to each other, covered in dense engravings. The pillars reminded Zac of the seventeen pillars lining the square when he arrived, though the engravings echoed his Daos rather than the seventeen peaks of cultivation.

These pillars seemed to be the source of the disturbance, and Zac could sense over twenty similar sources spread through the manor. Their aura was still far from reforging Mount Illumination in his image, but it was an important first step. It injected a sense of imperfection and doubt into the Dharmic Perfection, allowing Zac to withstand the pressure more easily.

The problem, if one could call it that, was that the energy density and Dao-attunement had noticeably increased since he left. The energy density was over ten times what he enjoyed in his cultivation cave back on Earth, and it felt like someone was constantly crushing Nexus Crystals to push the environment to this level.

More importantly, the Dao was much clearer here than back home. It was akin to the difference between a normal attuned Crystal and a top-tier attuned treasure. Even if only a third of it related to his Daos, it was almost beyond what he could deal with. Zac wryly smiled, almost happy he was an affinityless mortal. It must be torture for cultivators to live in this kind of magical environment, only to be unable to meditate on their Daos because of the Time Dilation.

The environment had transformed just like he’d hoped when he placed his manor on the only loophole on the mountain peak. Unfortunately, it meant Mount Illumination was still not suitable for permanent habitation. Even with his Void Self, Zac was forced to release his Daos soon enough.

Thankfully, it wouldn’t be much longer. Perhaps by the third or fourth echelon, Zac could stay as long as he wanted without having to use [Void Zone] or his Dao Fields to actively resist the environment. For now, Zac let his Dao suffuse the whole mansion as he carefully walked toward the closest window.

Zac breathed out in relief upon confirming neither ghost temples nor towering thousand-eyed Buddha had been permanently summoned to the peak. Neither could he feel the presence of the entity that seemed to have been forming inside the monastery’s main temple. It was all gone, leaving an empty peak covered in pebbles.

In fact, Zac didn’t see the golden nimbus that covered the peak earlier, either. Instead, he had a free view of a sprawling mountain range, a scene reminiscent of the Eastern Trigram Sect he visited during the hunt. Plugging up the leak in the array must have meant the energy the nimbus received was reduced to the point it dissipated.

“Hey, Null, are those mountains part of Mount Illumination?” Zac asked.

“Yes, but this peak should be the best one of the low-grade peaks the boss got his hands on.”

“And I can explore them for free?” Zac asked to confirm.

“Sure. If you travel somewhere without using our teleportation system, you won’t be charged. Technically, you can even find a few top-tier Red Zones and stay free of charge. But I should warn you, the Perennial Vastness isn’t just a simple continent. It exists simultaneously in multiple states and dimensions, and many of the best realms are in their specific subdimension.”

“I won’t waste time like that,” Zac said. “I just figured it might help solidify my Heart Cultivation if I ascended different Buddhist Peaks.”

“Sure, you can do that.”

Exploring the sprawling mountain range wasn’t something he needed to do right away. But he did want to at least figure out the situation with his own peak before leaving. His compound was completely square if you included a large walled courtyard out front. The building looked like a fortified temple, and the entrance and outer gate were perfectly aligned with the main ghost temple on the opposite side of the peak.

Zac walked out on a pebble path of his courtyard, noting that the native pebbles of the peak had been replaced within his manor. Instead of marble white, the stones were all black, gold, and steely grey. They formed a mottled Zen Garden, where the seemingly random placements of pebbles held some truths about his path.

A few minutes passed as Zac wordlessly looked at the ground before taking out a spear he had lying around in his Spatial Ring. He drew a few runes in the sand, his eyes gleaming as he saw the transformation of colors and their distribution. Zac shook his head and continued to the exit.

The outer gate looked like a larger version of the door leading into his storefront, with his blueprint emblazoned on both sides. There was no door or gate, but Zac saw how the air almost vibrated in the doorway. The Dao of Mount Illumination fought with the Dao powered by his Mana. For now, it was just a feeble struggle, but Zac smiled as he imagined how his path would one day swallow the whole peak.

His gaze moved from the air to the opposite side, and he took a steadying breath as he calmed his mind and conjured the Void. He didn’t need to close his eyes or activate his [Void Zone] to become one with the Void any longer. He was the Void, and the Void was he. And as though summoned by his will, the scene on the mountain peak drastically changed.

The enormous Buddha was gone, but the ghost monastery remained. The main temple had, however, gained a halo. It emitted an immense aura of providence, like it carried the fate of the cosmos. The scene made Zac’s eyes widen, and not just because of the incredibly powerful Dharmic pathbreaking truths it exuded. It was because he’d briefly sensed this same aura before, only thousands of times stronger.

The band of beads in his vision.

When he first stepped foot on Mount Illumination, he was shown a brief glimpse of a mysterious lotus and a band of prayer beads. Back then, he’d felt there was more to the vision than it being some random hallucination. What if the beads were real? That had to be a true Fate-augmenting treasure, one of the rarest kinds of items in existence. Something that magnified one’s Luck.

If it were real, he had to find a way to snatch it.

20

STRUGGLE AMONG THE HEAVENS

Zac looked at the distant ghost temple with desire burning in his heart. Fate was gathering within, and the special sense he’d gained from his huge accumulation of Luck indicated a powerful treasure waited there.

But how do you take something out from a temple that only existed in your heart? He’d tried entering the subsidiary temples multiple times on the way up. But any time he came in contact while running [Void Zone], the temple disappeared. Entering a meditative state from within the temple grounds hadn’t worked either. It simply didn’t appear around him.

Or had those rules perhaps changed?

Zac thought it over and released his Void State before making his way toward the temple on the other side. He stopped roughly at the midway point and entered his ethereal state again. However, the scene was so surprising he immediately lost it. It was gone.

The cloud of providence surrounding the temple, the swirls of Fate. They were both gone, leaving the temple looking just like before Zac summoned his manor. Zac tried activating his [Void Zone] instead, but the result was the same. Worried he’d missed out on a huge opportunity, Zac ran back to his manor. Calming his heart, Zac breathed out in relief. It was back.

A few minutes and experiments later, Zac confirmed a few things. The halo of providence only existed when he entered a Void State from within his mansion. At any other time, the sense of mystery and surging fate simply wasn’t there. The cloud would remain as long as he walked out of his manor while maintaining his state.

However, the whole peak transformed when approaching the temple this way. The Samsara Energy surged, and new additions appeared around him. A drum on a platform to the left, a bell tower with a golden bell to the right. Statues of Bodhisattvas and Devas guarding the entrances to the side temples. Anything he approached was elevated.

Furthermore, with every step he took toward the treasure on the other side, the more powerful the Dharmic pressure grew. It almost felt like the simple ghost temple contained a portal to the mysterious lotus flower he’d seen in the vision, and Zac was exposed to higher and higher Dharmic truths as he got closer.

By the time he reached the halfway point across the peak, Zac couldn’t maintain his [Void Zone]. It was like the monastery understood he was “cheating” when using his Bloodline Talent and multiplied the pressure in response. His Void Energy was rapidly drained, and he felt his consciousness pulled into the Boundless Dharma.

His vision swam, and Zac could barely hear himself think over the roar of the Dao of Samsara. He felt that if he took another step, he’d enter the cycle of reincarnation. Zachary Atwood would cease to exist, even if his body remained. His survival instincts trumped his greed, forcing him to back down even if his mind was hazy.

Using his Void State went better. Since evolving his heart, it wasn’t hard for Zac to maintain a Void State while walking around, so he didn’t actually need to use [Void Zone] to move. Unfortunately, Zac still didn’t get much farther than the halfway point before he was unable to continue. The barrier between the self and the cosmos was fraying at that point.

Zac reluctantly looked at the inviting temple door just a few hundred meters away. His instincts told him that he could take the treasure as long as he could walk across the peak without succumbing. This was just like the Sangha. They didn’t need to coerce or trick anyone into joining. They openly invited everyone to visit their holy sites, and people would succumb to their desires and grasp for too much.

He was greedy, but he did not need to go all-out for that thing right away. He’d just broken through to Void Self, and Zac could somewhat sense it was possible to improve the stability of the self even further. There were also protective treasures and talismans that were worth looking into. Anything that could give him an edge and allow him to take those next steps.

Since taking out the treasure immediately was impossible, Zac returned to his manor and started exploring other parts of his home. There was a small scripture hall where thousands of scrolls were placed into cubbies. They didn’t contain any cultivation methods, but Zac still found them interesting.

The scrolls mostly held historical accounts, describing the origin and history of the many zones in the Perennial Vastness. More than half of the environments in this realm had been absorbed from the outside, while the others had been born through various events. The information could shed some light on the various dangers of these regions, but that wasn’t why Zac spent almost an hour reading a random scroll.

There was a sense of mystery within the descriptions. They contained a unique charm that hinted at something grand. But unlike with the [Book of Duality], Zac couldn’t figure out what. For now.

He could tell there was something hidden within the flowing prose, and he had a lot of experience deciphering this type of text. Zac didn’t know if it was related to Dao or something else, but he really wanted to get to the bottom of it before he left.

Zac continued into the main meditation chamber and was met by his blueprint floating in the middle of his room. However, this projection was far more detailed than the ones that appeared on top of his head when looking for fights. There were depictions of energy flows, Dao interactions, and even individual patterns.

He’d heard some of it from Catheya over the past days, and he pointed at a certain section as he walked over. The complete blueprint was replaced with a small piece, and Zac got a far-better look at that part. He played around with the array a bit more and found it far more incisive than he’d anticipated. Zac even found some spots that were candidates for improvement, using his most recent insights into Kalpataru and Pale Seal.

That wasn’t the only thing the array could do. Zac activated another feature of the projection, and raging waves of flames assaulted the pathways. Being under assault by the Dao of Fire put the blueprint under pressure, and the energy circulation sped up. Zac looked on with interest as large amounts of energy were dragged into the output channels, clearly simulating skills being activated.

This feature was one of the biggest expenditures for most guests. The Perennial Vastness was an ancient realm with a direct connection to the System. There was almost no Dao or path it couldn’t simulate, allowing cultivators to test their path and blueprint against any challenge.

Few could say they had a path that no Dao could restrain or was without glaring weaknesses in certain situations. In that sense, perfection could be considered an illusion, where you did what you could to improve your foundations. With the array running simulations days out and days in for years, you were bound to stumble upon some improvements while deepening the understanding of your path.

Of course, duels were far cheaper in comparison. Still, it was a matter of luck and chance to stumble upon someone who not only had a set of Daos that could provoke a weakness in your path but also had the skill and discernment to spot it.

Zac chose to activate the premium simulation at 25 Mana a day. He’d let it run for the next month as an experiment. Having visited the Keys of Ascension, Zac no longer felt the truth of Ultom omnipotent. It imparted theories far beyond the level of the E-grade with unmatched clarity, but it was completely separated from the Dao.

Who knew? Some of his so-called fake weaknesses might be real loopholes created by his imperfect understanding of Duality and his Daos. To spend 750 Mana over the next month, letting the array try out tens of thousands of scenarios, was a small price to pay. Suppose the blueprint proved as impervious as he believed it to be, then great. He’d paid a small fee to put aside his final worries. If not, Zac would know he’d have to adjust his plans.

After an hour of looking through everything, Zac was ready to leave. He hesitated but eventually teleported to one of the cheaper Green Zones. An hour later, after having rested and performing a few experiments with his improved Heart Cultivation, Zac teleported to Vastness City.

It was a small trick that allowed him to emerge in Vastness City as a human without going through his storefront. The feature was useless for most people, but it did allow Zac to keep the secret of his two races hidden for a while longer.

There was no way he’d avoid getting exposed sooner or later because of his blueprint, but he wanted to trick some more people into duels before that happened. The only downside was that it cost one day’s worth of entry to the Green Zones he picked, though there were many which cost less than 30 Mana a day.

Zac emerged at the teleportation square, only to turn back toward the pillar after it closed behind him.

‘The Calamity,’ Zac said in his mind.

A terrifying golden hurricane appeared on the other side of the gate. A moment later, Zac was gone, off to deal with the next thing on his list.

Scar glanced down with surprise at the ball in his hand, but he forcibly kept his face impassive. He wasn’t the only one sitting in the recovery area, and he couldn’t ruin the princess’ plans by giving something away. One line. This was the marking he’d been told to always keep a lookout for over the past five years, the opportunity his mistress had been waiting for.

This was his chance as well. He’d emerged an elite recruit of the Empire after almost a century of hellish training, narrowly surviving where tens of millions had fallen to raise new generations of the Imperial Guard. Serving the Heavens was a great honor and a chance for his descendants to contribute to the Imperial Fate, but he also knew one’s future was limited in this path.

He’d get to enjoy the greatest resources and training, gaining power most could only dream of. However, if Scar was assigned to one of the old imperials in seclusion, he might not leave the palace for the rest of his life. Dozens of generations could come and go before one of the ancient masters either emerged or passed on.

Right place at the right time. Scar was just in the upper segment rather than the peak of the guard, but the princess needed followers who had yet to enter the Halls of Glory to form an Imperial Core. And Scar just so happened to have a useful bloodline, the one thing he was thankful to his traitorous ancestor for. If he managed to help the young princess in this matter while seizing a seal for himself, he had a small chance of being promoted to a Sword of the Empire.

Leading the armies into the unknown ancient realms, looting the treasuries of the Empire’s enemies. Not having to seal his emotions and desires inside the Halls of Glory. Gaining the right to take a wife and form a lineage. The right to choose a true name of his own, not just a nickname temporarily given by the princess because she felt the number 8376-56 was too much of a mouthful.

This was his chance to generate enough Imperial Merit to expunge his ancestor’s sin in one go.

The minutes passed as Scar continued to scan any comers and goers while pretending to recover from his wounds. Not sending out a message, nothing. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long, as his replacement arrived one hour later through the gate. He was covered in blood and familiar wounds. Scar briefly wondered why 8379-35 did that to himself when the princess permitted them to gain their wounds by hunting for treasures.

Scar guessed it was because 8379-35 was afraid he’d get himself killed, which would mean he failed the mission. Better to maim himself than risk letting that happen. Scar inwardly shook his head as he stood up to leave, not even exchanging a glance with the man. After all, they were only strangers who needed to rest after training, not people who shared a common mission.

“You are pushing the limits, keeping watch of the teleportation arrays for 48% of each day,” Oldro said in Scar’s mind.

‘We are only following the restrictions you levied on us,’ Scar answered the guide.

“Why’d I have to get stuck with a deathsworn,” Oldro sighed. “You should be working hard at your core, not wasting your time spying on others. At this rate, you’ll get me killed.”

‘Your fate is not my responsibility. If you want to blame something, blame your bad luck that you were born a creature without control of your life and death.’

“Like you’re any different,” the guide scoffed.

Scar calmly walked toward the street where he and the princess had been placed. The thought of getting similar treatment as an Imperial Royalty was extremely unsettling, doubly so after their first encounter. She’d decided their proximity meant they were fated and temporarily elevated his status to a Royal Advisor.

A role he was woefully ill-equipped for. What did he know about strategy, schemes, and the great undertakings of the ancient masters? He had been slated to remove all thoughts in a few years, completing his transition into an eternal guard. He only knew how to fight and how to protect.

Still, he could only do his best to follow orders, and he sent a weak tendril of energy into a talisman upon entering his storefront. A few minutes later, a warrior emerged from a nearby structure, walking over to Scar.

“The princess requests your presence,” the guard said. Scar bowed and wordlessly crossed the street.

A moment later, Scar appeared inside a living room that had become familiar by this point, where he spotted his master sitting at her usual spot at the workbench she’d brought over.

“How ostentatious, always asking you to waste Mana by visiting her manor. She is a seventh-echelon guest. She could have come to your place for free,” Oldro scoffed.

Scar ignored the guide’s grating voice. He’d long realized what it was trying to do. It wanted to drive a wedge between himself and Princess Valsa Planur, to enkindle a desire for personal progress. Only through gathering enough Mana would Oldro survive, and it didn’t care about what happened to Scar after he left the Perennial Vastness.

“I greet the princess,” Scar said, kneeling five meters away.

“Come, sit,” Valsa lazily waved.

Scar inwardly groaned. Sitting down at the table with an imperial was punishable by death for someone of his standing. But so was refusing orders. Scar could only comply and pray Valsa wouldn’t mention her way of management upon returning to the First Heaven.

“What happened?”

“By Princess’ grace, I found another one,” Scar said, trying not to color the report with excitement. “Furthermore, the resonator showed one line.”

“What?” Valsa said, her lazy demeanor gone as she looked up from the schematics in front of her. Another component for her regalia, it looked like. “One line? Are you certain?”

“I am certain, Princess,” Scar confirmed.

“A Flamebearer. It looks like fate is conspiring against my scheming cousin,” Valsa said, her mouth curving upward. “When did this happen?”

“One hour ago. I am sorry for belaying the report. Other people were recuperating at the square, including individuals suspected to be informants. I dared not do anything that might expose the identity of the Flamebearer.”

“You did the right thing.” Valsa nodded. “This is why I wanted to bring people who had yet to sever their past. Continue.”

“It was a human male of interminable origin. He wore no markings of any known force,” Scar said. “He entered the Calamity. Does Princess wish to activate the coalition?”

“No,” Valsa said without hesitation. “Those chosen by the Left Imperial Palace are bound to be tricky to deal with. We cannot act hastily. We might only get one chance to strike, so we have to make it count. What do you know about this person?”

“Reporting to Princess, I have never seen him before. Furthermore, he is an untiered guest. He should be a new arrival,” Scar said. “I failed to confirm his Daos, but I am guessing he has one related to Life. He does not have the dourness of a living practicing the Dao of Death generally carries. And I felt an odd sense of stability from him.”

“Stability?” Valsa repeated with a raised brow.

“As though I was looking at a calm lake,” Scar said before bowing. “I beg your forgiveness. It is just foolish ramblings of this servant.”

“No, you have the [Planar Pulse]. Thanks to your bloodline, your instincts should rarely be wrong,” Valsa waved. “There are various things that can give you such an impression. The fact that he can block out your senses and Hidden Nodes is a clue. All the more reason to be careful on how we handle this.”

Scar nodded, inwardly hesitant whether he should be giving suggestions at this point as the appointed Royal Advisor or wait for orders as he was trained to do. Was he failing the princess? Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait for long.

“Over the next three months, thoroughly investigate the target. But don’t forget about the others. I don’t think it’s a coincidence at least five sealbearers have appeared over the past year. We might have an advantage with our history and connection to the pillars, but others also have the means to expose these people.”

“Princess wishes to change her target from the one who appeared two months ago?” Scar asked.

“Of course!” Valsa grinned. “I can’t believe a Flamebearer showed up! So what if the Emperors picked my cousin? So what if he carries more fate with the Fifth Pillar? Fate can be seized. If the Heavens want to keep me away, I’ll just break down the gates and force myself inside.”

“Of course,” Scar nodded, hesitating a bit.

“What?” Valsa frowned. “Spit it out. Remember, you’re an advisor now. Advise.”

“It’s just…” Scar hesitated. “35 brought an update from Imperial Prince Yzum Tobrial upon his arrival. Prince Yselio of Seventh Heaven has already succeeded in becoming a Flamebearer. Taking a seal is Princess’s right, but becoming a Flamebearer may create problems for the First Emperor and tension with the Seventh Heaven.”

“Oh, that,” Valsa laughed. “Well, don’t worry about my Royal Father. Who do you think gave me all these tokens and told me to go seize Fate?”

“Forgive my foolishness,” Scar quickly bowed while inwardly crying.

He had just heard something he absolutely wasn’t supposed to. If it was one thing that could drag you and your whole bloodline into an early grave, it was knowing the secrets of a Supremacy. Especially when the Supremacy was the reigning emperor of the First Imperial Heaven.

21

THE CALAMITY

The Calamity was the same place where Zac had an opportunity to build his manor. But the storm he’d seen the first time was a special zone at the outer edges of the ancient chaotic anomaly, and it cost 50 Mana a day to keep your manor there.

Meanwhile, the Calamity was a Red Zone, where the teleporter took you farther inside. It cost a whopping 250 Mana a day to visit, making it one of the most expensive regular zones in the whole Perennial Vastness, even when including those restricted by echelon. Despite that, it was still at the very utmost perimeter of the storm, which was almost unfathomably big. Some estimates even put it at a size comparable to a smaller C-grade continent.

The inner regions weren’t available to the guests of the Perennial Vastness. That place could threaten even Monarchs, and it was sealed off by the Perennial Vastness. Perhaps it was running high-tiered experiments there, or it could even be a cultivation zone for one of the Realm Spirit’s disciples like Lord Engo. With such a huge realm, there could be whole civilizations living inside the Perennial Vastness without the guests knowing.

Zac wasn’t going to the Calamity to sightsee but to continue his cultivation. Having gained a surprising breakthrough in his heart, providing him access to his manor, Zac was faced with a choice. Breaking through his soul was no longer as critical as before. He could spend the next few days touring the trial zones to get better acquainted with them, such as visiting the Quarry as Lord Engo suggested.

However, Zac ultimately chose to continue with his pre-arranged plan. Three weeks in Sinner’s Lament had proven just how dangerous the Perennial Vastness could be. This was no place to save breakthroughs for later. Better to be safe than sorry. And that was what led him to the Calamity.

There were more zones like the Keys of Ascension in the Perennial Vastness, but none perfectly suited his unusual requirements of needing Pure Life and Death. As he’d realized during his years of bitter cultivation, it was a paradoxical path that was a dead end for anyone with actual affinities.

Keys of Ascension and a few similar places would do the trick, but it would cost most of his Mana. He had already made almost 10,000 in one month, but he knew the lion’s share of that windfall came from a situation he couldn’t easily replicate. Seeing how hard he’d been forced to work for a profit of one thousand from hunting Sinner Mounds, Zac had to be careful with his spending.

Most of the remaining options were zones like Mount Illumination. Life and Death might be present, but it was in a different state than what he needed. Using a mixed-meaning region didn’t seem like an optimal idea. His breakthroughs always drew huge amounts of energy from his surroundings, and he didn’t want foreign Daos messing anything up.

The easiest solution was waiting until he had enough Mana that his manor’s environment mirrored his path. But since that could take over a year, he was left with the Calamity, which had exactly the environment he required and more than enough energy.

Unfortunately, Zac didn’t even get the chance to get his bearings upon stepping through. A pang of danger was all the warning he got before he was whisked away, dragging him far from the teleportation pillar. A deafening roar sounding like millions of firecrackers filled his head, and his surroundings became a confusing blur.

Incredible amounts of Life-attuned energies raged around him, almost reaching the central circle of the temple where he broke through just hours ago. However, this place was no cultivation haven. It was a warzone, where the energies were incredibly agitated, partly because Zac could actually sense a hint of Creation in its depths.

Similarly, some Death was thrown into the mix, which was probably the cause of the agitation. Furthermore, the interaction between Life and Death was far more visceral than Zac was used to. It almost felt like the Dao had gone insane. For some reason, the vastly more abundant Divine Energy was willing to destroy itself to ensure it annihilated those snippets of Death in its midst.

Conflagrations of Life erupted in every direction, swirling whirls of madness creating small hurricanes in their wake. And Zac was caught and helplessly flying around in the middle of it all, utterly incapable of getting control over his body.

If nothing changed, who knew where he’d end up?

Cursing his bad luck, Zac couldn’t hold back, and he activated [Void Zone] to quell the hurricane of Life-attuned energies that had kidnapped him. Except the moment he did, it was like he’d become enemy number one to the storm. Instead of targeting the snippets of Death, the abundant Divine Energy stormed into his nullification Zone, overwhelming its defenses.

Dozens of muted explosions erupted, and Zac’s Void Energy was expended at an alarming rate. The Bloodline Talent had clearly made things worse rather than better, and Zac urgently canceled the domain. With Void Zone gone, he had to endure the crazed energies with his body. But the Dao stopped targeting him, at least.

Until he tried using his Dao Fields.

The environment in the Calamity was dead-set on creating trouble. His Branch of the Kalpataru acted as fuel for the eruptions, while Pale Seal made him an even more obvious target than [Void Zone]. And unsurprisingly, his Branch of the War Axe stirred the flames of Conflict, worsening his situation.

Zac was completely lost. The low gravity of the Calamity prevented him from falling back to the ground. And activating [Earthstrider] only created more trouble. The chaotic energies were messing with the skill, and he sensed he hadn’t moved in the direction he intended. With his movement skill on the fritz, Zac could only move to another backup plan, having Vivi’s sturdy vines shot out in every direction like feelers.

He wanted to find something to grab onto, but Vivi’s vines were all destroyed long before they found solid ground.

The situation was bad, and the energy only kept rising, breaking apart and reforming in a deadly cycle that would instantly rip any F-grade cultivators to shreds. Even Zac’s Life-attuned Constitution only provided a limited reprieve from the chaos. Worse, it felt like the storm was building toward something. Something terrifying.

Zac suddenly felt a pang of danger, but he had no chance to react before a small swirl ripped a chunk of his leg. Golden blood and flesh were dragged into the haze, but Zac’s eyes gleamed with interest as he stuffed a couple of Healing Pills into his mouth. In contrast to [Void Zone] or his Dao Fields, his blood was having a cooling effect on the storm.

Thanks to the calming effect of the bloody mist, Zac could see farther than a few arm lengths. The franticness died down in the area closest to him, and the haze cleared.

Zac almost wished it hadn’t. The Dao itself wasn’t the only danger in these parts.

An undulating shriek pierced the storm’s roar as a twenty-meter-long creature flew toward him. It looked a lot like a golden manta, its body covered in what looked like naturally formed runes. Its body was not only able to withstand the storm but even harness its force to some extent.

A Divine Stormglider.

If not for the chaotic situation, Zac would have been happy. The hides of Stormgliders were quite valuable because they made great armor. An undead cultivator incorporating those hides into their regalia would drastically improve their defenses, particularly against Life. Zac already learned the Undead Coalition had a standing order on those things.

It was one of the native creatures of the Calamity, having found an amazing cultivation environment where most only saw danger.

The Stormglider seemed attracted by his Life-attuned blood, its shrieks incredibly excited as it pulled a drop into its mouth. Zac wasn’t surprised at the reaction. Thanks to his Dao and pure constitution, his body had become something like a Natural Treasure to beasts. He was more worried about the fact Stormgliders seldom traveled alone.

A storm of fractal leaves shot forth, aiming to kill the Stormglider in two before it could call the rest of its squadron. But the runes on the Early Beast King lit up, and Zac swore with surprise when the storm increased in ferocity. A gust pushed through the temporarily calm surroundings and ripped apart the blades while creating a curtain between Zac and the beast.

The division didn’t last long. A beam of pure light pierced through, aimed straight at Zac. Around it, streamers containing the condensed essence of the chaotic environment tagged along, creating a deadly combination attack. Though Zac hadn’t just been sitting around since his opening salvo. Two shrouds pushed forward, forming an invisible divide.

The divinity beam was utterly incapable of contending against [Rapturous Divide] and was swiftly cut apart. The Stormglider had the home-field advantage, but Zac had the advantage in absolute strength.

The boundary between Life and Death was under attack by the environment, but its intangible blade still cut everything for over two hundred meters before the skill collapsed. It contained a huge amount of Cosmic Energy and force, and in its wake, allowed a temporary corridor of absolute calm to form.

Zac activated [Earthstrider] to appear right next to the bisected Beast King, and he stowed away the huge corpse before flashing away. It had only been for a fraction of a second, but [Rapturous Divide] had not only helped Zac kill his target, it gave him a glimpse of land not that far away.

He needed to act quickly. First and foremost, the small Beast King he’d killed was probably just one of the outer scouts of its squadron. He could already hear dozens of piercing shrieks through the storm, probably answering their fallen companion’s earlier call. Dealing with one or two was easy, but Zac didn’t want to tangle with the whole pack.

There was no lack of Middle-stage Beast Kings in most Red Zones, and reports mentioned there could even be Late-stage Beast Kings lurking in the shadows. Zac wasn’t even confident in dealing with the former. The Beast Kings you encountered in the Perennial Vastness had far purer bloodlines than the ones on the frontier, and creatures that could thrive in the Calamity were doubly fearsome.

And against Late-stage Beast Kings? His only chance at survival was to escape and hope the beasts didn’t notice him. It was possible the stronger coalitions in Perennial Vastness could hunt Late-stage Beast Kings, provided they gathered enough people and made thorough preparations.

Furthermore, Zac didn’t have much time. Even if the storm had momentarily calmed, it was only in a relative sense. The Dao was weakened thanks to his blood, but the wind was still very much there. He’d soon be swept away if he didn’t reach land. Zac could also sense a growing sense of unease.

Something was happening in the heart of the storm, not too far-off in the distance. He couldn’t see anything because of the golden haze, but just sensing it was enough to make his hair stand on end. It seemed like the mother of all explosions was gathering momentum, and Zac wanted to take cover before it erupted.

Vivi could not reach the distant patch of land without being ripped apart, but Zac had an idea. He let the vines pass by the still-bleeding wound in his leg as he activated [Earthstrider] again. His surroundings shifted and he was instantly disoriented, but five vines shot out in different directions, each glinting with a hint of gold.

The storm weakened all around him, and Zac once more spotted land, this time much closer. Another jump and Zac found himself just fifty meters away. It was enough. Vivi was prepared, and two of her vines managed to latch onto a few rocks on the ground before the wind dragged Zac away. The storm raged harder on the surface, but Zac staunchly withstood it as he pulled himself down.

Just as Zac thought himself safe, he felt a pang of danger as an incredible tremor rippled through the ground. If not for Vivi, he’d have been launched into the air again, but he still got some scrapes and bruises from slamming into the sharp ground. Zac was about to crawl up, but he realized his point of gravity was rapidly being shifted. The patch of land had started shifting, and Zac found himself hanging onto the ground rather than lying on it.

Zac was about to stand up to get his bearings, but a scream of danger made him throw himself on the ground as quickly as he humanly could. A stone shard as large as a head whizzed past just above, effortlessly breaking through the shields of two defensive treasures before ripping a wound across Zac’s back. It would have punched a hole right through his body if he hadn’t pushed back down fast enough.

A moment later, the stone was gone, flying with almost impossible speed. Hundreds of similar stones followed in its wake, though most were dozens of meters in the air. The fact the floating island was suddenly spinning saved his bacon, as it spun away from the trajectory of the meteor shower that hurtled by.

Just as Zac thought he was safe, the sound reached him. The explosion was so loud Zac was knocked out for a moment, and his vision swam even after waking up. Zac was scared, bleeding, and disoriented, but he couldn’t stop now. He needed to get out of the wind.

Zac channeled the Kill Energy from the Stormglider into [Surging Vitality] while [Verun’s Bite] reappeared in his hand. His blood did sort of act like a shield against the environment, but he didn’t want to attract any more Stormgliders while looking for shelter. The gleaming edge of Verun crashed into the ground, but a painful rebound in his wrist was the only result.

He’d used quite a bit of force, and the only proof of his attack was a shallow line on the rocky surface. As expected, anything that could survive inside the Calamity was incredibly sturdy. That also proved just how powerful the previous eruption was. That distant explosion had contained enough force to rip up the ground and launch shrapnel in every direction. It’d be game over if he took one of those to the face.

There was no way he could carve out a cave in this kind of bedrock, and Zac could only start moving in search of a natural shelter. One moment he was climbing. The next, he was running, all while the island kept spinning. Soon, Zac felt like he’d hit the jackpot, spotting the mouth of a cave not far-off. He jumped inside, ready to fight any beast that tried to push him out.

There was none.

Zac breathed in relief, both from the cave being over fifty meters deep and unoccupied by any beast. He set up a series of arrays to hide his presence from the Stormgliders and any other beasts before moving into the depths of the cave. Zac figured he’d be mostly safe even from such powerful eruptions this far into the incredibly hard rock, and he couldn’t feel another one of those blasts building up.

Those kinds of explosions couldn’t be too common even in the Calamity, or it would have been too dangerous even for a Red Zone. Zac grunted as he sat down and soon found the cave started to spin. With an annoyed sigh, Zac opted to suspend himself in the air with Vivi’s help, where he could rotate along with the island.

Outside, the storm kept raging. Distant calls of Stormgliders and other beasts could barely be heard through the incessant roar of the unrelenting storm. Even after the shocking discharge before, the Calamity had plenty of energy to spare. Going back out now would be asking for trouble, Void Vajra Constitution or not.

Zac shook his head as he remembered his thoughts upon reading the reports on the Calamity. He’d thought he’d be like a lost scion finding his way back home, where his unique Duality provided him benefits akin to the Twilight Ocean.

Reality was often a harsh mistress.

22

NOMAD

Zac felt a palpable sense of déjà vu as he observed the golden storm. At least his situation wasn’t quite as bad as when he fell into the Twilight Chasm. For one, he still had all his limbs. Secondly, the environment was quite nice now that he’d gotten out of the wind. It really looked like the storm was self-perpetuating. The wind agitated the Dao, which resulted in deadly eruptions that generated more wind.

The moment he found shelter, the Dao calmed, though still far more agitated than normal. That wasn’t all bad when kept within reason. Zac felt a dense stream of Pure Life enter his wounds, assisting in his recovery. This phenomenon was why the zone was considered worth 250 Mana a day.

It wouldn’t be wrong to call the Calamity a deathtrap, but the few safe spots that appeared were havens even top-tier cultivation chambers had difficulty matching up to. It was a great environment for cultivators to gather the energy needed to form a Life-or-Death-attuned core, and unique treasures were continuously born.

The storm kept raging outside, but Zac didn’t mind after confirming the rest of the Stormgliders were gone. He guessed the huge explosion before might have scared them away. Zac’s constitution was fast at work mending his wounds, and the rich environment even put him in a semi-enlightened state to figure out some improvements to a schematic he’d been working on.

A schematic for a healing skill.

[Surging Vitality] had served him well since unlocking the second floor of the Dao Repository years ago, and it had already patched up the wound on his back. However, it ultimately wasn’t a very strong skill. It was a Middle-quality skill without any attunement. The only reason it had worked so well on Zac’s body was because of his high Vitality and his body’s inherent ability to recover. Any skill would have worked great on him.

But [Surging Vitality] had too many limitations. For one, it was incredibly inefficient, requiring way more energy compared to most skills. That was probably why it had been designed to run on Kill Energy rather than normal energy reserves from the start. Secondly, infusing the skill with his Branch of Kalpataru only slightly improved the effect. Finally, it only had a 70% match with his pathways, lowering the efficiency even further.

For years, Zac had planned on swapping the skill out with a proper self-made one that meshed better with his class and Daos. He had mostly figured out what he wanted, and his study of blueprints gave him the skill to create it from scratch. But he’d held off, waiting for more pieces to fall into place.

Now, with his constitution evolved and his Dao Branch already at Middle-stage, he had everything he needed to finish the preparatory work. And as long as he didn’t wait too long to form the skill, he’d probably be able to push it to Peak-mastery before even leaving the Perennial Vastness.

The storm’s ferocity rendered the outside impassable even after an hour, but Zac didn’t care. The island had already stopped spinning after the previous blast, and the danger seemed to be waning. Zac understood he’d been caught in a squall the moment he entered the Calamity. Thankfully this level of danger wasn’t a permanent state, at least not everywhere at once. There were ebbs just like the flow he’d just seen.

Eventually, the roar of the wind calmed into a constant groan, and Zac hesitantly peeked out from his cave. The wind was still extremely strong, forcing Zac to hold onto the wall, but the air above was no longer an overwhelming golden haze. Now, smaller clouds flitted about in a vast backdrop of a chaotic dance between Life and Death. It looked like he’d been transported to a world of a thousand drifting suns, where roughly half shone in gold and the other half in black.

Between these stellar objects, incredibly ferocious storms raged, just like the one that had almost dragged him away. At any given time, there were eruptions powerful enough to wound even him grievously. And in the middle of all this chaos, platforms and islands floated about like boats on a raging sea.

Some were only a few thousand meters across, while others were so large that it’d take Zac hours to cross them. What kept them afloat, Zac had no idea. There was a slight upward draft in the whole Calamity, but he doubted that was enough to keep whole islands bobbing about. His gaze turned upward, and he saw the same scene continuing deep into the sky until his vision was blocked by an incredibly chaotic storm mixed of gold and black.

Being a mostly vertical realm, it would only take Zac a few days to cross the whole thing. The goal was to climb higher, where the energy was richer, and the treasures were better. Certainly, the beasts would also be stronger. Getting to the top was easier said than done. There were only a few safe routes through the huge storm in the sky, so you couldn’t just fly straight up.

Things were calmer around Zac now compared to what he saw in the distance. The storm of Life had swept up a lot of the energy, leaving the region relatively calm. Zac stepped out, knowing he had to make his move before it was too late.

Gazing around, he shuddered. He was less than one hundred meters from a sharp edge. And he knew where that led—nowhere. Being a literal hurricane, there was a down just like there was an up. Falling meant trouble if you weren’t careful and lacked the means to right the ship.

Far in the distance, Zac saw the pillar from where he’d arrived, proving he was still on the starting disk. Normally, it wouldn’t have been so easy to spot, but the Perennial Vastness helped out a bit in this confusing place. A huge sigil hovered above the pillar, making it easy to spot even from other islands. Of course, the guides could always point you in the direction of the pillar in case you were lost.

Zac’s eyes turned back toward the edge and then farther away, to the storm of Life that assaulted him for the past hour. Within, Zac could vaguely make out another floating island currently under assault. A deadly hail of rocks raked its surface, each projectile containing the strength of a Hegemon’s all-out attack.

The squall of Life had picked up in force while moving between islands, and Zac watched as a chunk over a hundred meters tall was snapped off the island. It was dragged across the surface, leaving a nasty gash in its wake before being flung out of sight.

In the face of something like that, there was only one reprieve: to run for your life. Better yet, figure out the weather patterns to avoid facing such a squall head-on. If you failed, you’d get turned into meat paste if unlucky. And just getting swept off wasn’t much better.

Apparently, the Perennial Vastness had cordoned off the Red Zone as a safety precaution, and the Chaos-attuned storm had formed a self-contained subsystem. There was no risk of being dragged into the more dangerous regions of the Chaos Storm, but the Calamity alone was lethal enough to grind even Hegemons to dust.

Zac wasn’t confident in enduring the unpredictable energy eruptions until he was dragged close enough to another floating island to latch on. And Null was no help. Apart from the barrier at the edge of the Red Zone, there were no safety nets. He couldn’t just tap out and be brought back to Vastness City if he couldn’t hack it.

Zac had already scanned the skyline for his target, but it wasn’t there. He’d have to keep moving for a while. Already prepared for this, he took out what looked like a hang glider with five-meter-wide wings. It could be considered a Flying Treasure, yet not. Flying Treasures were banned in almost all the zones of the Perennial Vastness, with a few notable exceptions like the nimbus. But there were half-measures allowed, such as the item in his hands.

It was made from local materials and didn’t have any flight or propulsion arrays. Instead, it contained a simple wind-controlling array that would allow him to gather and, to a certain degree, redirect the momentum of the winds in the Calamity.

As long as you were careful, it could take you shorter distances between the floating islands and meteors, using the low gravity and upward draft. You risked getting snatched up by powerful winds, but with some movement skills and other treasures, you could often stop yourself from getting pulled away.

Of course, being a zone with a hint of Primordial Chaos, there was always a risk that a storm would erupt out of nowhere.

Zac observed the surroundings for another minute, but he couldn’t dally. The information on the Calamity wasn’t endless, but quite a few had visited because the islands ultimately held treasures of Life and Death. Some lucky cultivators even found items containing echoes of Creation and Oblivion. Even if not directly useful for their cultivation, such items were incredibly valuable on the outside.

A series of roars echoed out, and Zac looked on with interest as a swarm of beasts leaped out from the very same platform as the one he stood on. His eyes lit up, knowing this was a good sign. Zac started running, steeling his heart as he jumped off the edge of the floating island, landing atop the glider while holding onto a set of reins to control the wings.

A powerful katabatic wind tried to drag him down, but the arrays activated on the wings. Zac redirected the force and felt himself pull out from the downdraft, soaring toward the island the storm had just assaulted.

The most important lesson in the missive was that while storms and eruptions could happen at any time, the safest place was generally to follow in the wake of a larger squall. Furthermore, the beasts living on the various islands had just withstood a powerful storm, often many weakened and unwilling to emerge from their burrows.

That way, you could island hop with relative safety, looking for treasure or beasts to hunt. Or, in Zac’s case, a suitable cultivation ground. The migration of the beasts proved the timing was good as well.

After his experience in the Twilight Chasm, flying between islands like this was a bit nerve-wracking. It felt like a current could appear and suck him into the depths at any moment. It remained relatively calm, as far as traveling inside hurricanes went. Even the beasts played nice. Those who needed to move islands wouldn’t fight with each other over the chasm. They’d need to reserve their strength.

Zac glanced to his sides, marveling at the scene of dozens of Beast Kings and their E-grade underlings who had appeared out of nowhere. He felt like the vanguard of a mottled army as they all flew toward the closest island. The mix was almost even between undead and living creatures, and most seemed to have adapted to a life without solid ground beneath their feet.

More than half were birds or various forms of gliders like the mantas he’d encountered. One undead creature looked a lot like a twenty-meter puffer fish. A spiked zeppelin gliding through the air. Similarly, there was a den of golden snakes where even the E-grade snakes effortlessly floated in the air, seemingly thanks to a high buoyancy. Only a few seemed a bit out of their element, like a huge toad and a rocklike creature.

Each group had at least one Beast King leading, yet none targeted Zac. They only gave him wary looks before refocusing on the island ahead. They even kept their more feral descendants in line, preventing them from targeting Zac or the other groups.

The creatures of the Calamity could be divided into three groups, and he’d already met the first: the skyborne. The Stormgliders were part of this group of beasts that never touched land. They could live within the energy-dense storms, getting all the nourishment they needed from the environment and the attuned stars. Corporeal skyborne were relatively rare, with most being energy creatures.

The second group was the nomads, also called the storm chasers. The beasts currently surrounding Zac belonged to this group. They were predators moving from island to island in search of Natural Treasures and prey to devour. They rarely stayed in one place too long, moving on when the resources were expended. Some had real dens somewhere in the Calamity they eventually returned to, while others were true nomads. Some were beasts who had been pushed away from their previous homes and forced to look for a new place to live.

No matter their origin, these beasts had long learned to stay out of the way of other nomads and visiting cultivators, who could be considered part of the same group. They already had their hands full dealing with the other two groups, and they couldn’t fall to infighting. If too few nomads gathered, moving between islands would become too dangerous. After all, there was safety in numbers.

The crossing only took fifteen minutes, though that didn’t mean the distance was short. The raging storm had already passed, but its movement had created a powerful pull in its wake. Zac’s Flying Treasures wouldn’t have been able to keep up with his current pace, even if the glider didn’t have any means of propulsion.

Suddenly, a twelve-winged centipede screeched as dense streams of noxious plumes of Miasma started to leak from its maw. Zac frowned as he looked over, his eyes widening when a deep gash appeared on its body. The hidden blade had been launched from too far away, and black ichor quickly mended the wound before the centipede unleased a wave of putrefaction toward the shores.

Where a welcoming party had already gathered.

Apart from the skyborne and the nomads, there were also the territorial beasts—those who had found a place to call home in this chaotic environment. They differed greatly in origin and strength, but they had one thing in common: they fiercely guarded their dens against the other two groups.

Both sides were already unleashing an unrelenting salvo of attacks at each other the moment they came within range. Zac couldn’t just sit back—doing so would show weakness to the other nomads, and he’d risk getting ganged up on even if they breached the island. A surge of Cosmic Energy entered his arm, and the gate of [Arcadia’s Judgement] appeared.

A huge Death spike impaled the wooden hand the moment it emerged, and Zac felt a stabbing pain in his own hand. But the hand of Arcadia contained boundless Life, and the spike crumbled under its force. The gates flew over to the shores, absorbing the Life-attuned attacks while rebuffing those of Death.

The whole edge of the island groaned upon being put under such pressure just after enduring the storm, and the already exhausted beasts weren’t that much better off. The nomads weren’t stupid—they knew this was their chance. They went all-out, launching all kinds of Bloodline Talents, and one beast after another was either killed or forced to retreat.

And then came the judgement. The axe slammed down, destroying three Beast Kings in one go. Their bloodline skills were utterly incapable of rebuffing a dual-branch-empowered finisher. The spikes were even more dangerous, formed of the incredibly sturdy rocks the island was made of. Another five Beast Kings fell, and hundreds of their underlings were ripped to shreds by the ferocious resonance between the spikes.

Even more beasts remained standing, but they had clearly lost their desire to fight. They turned tail, fleeing deeper into the island, and a few even jumped down and flew toward the islands below. One attack had instantly ended the war, and even the nomads looked at Zac warily as he landed on the shore.

Usually, these encounters meant a tough fight with casualties on both sides. This time, the nomads came out of it unscathed. Zac ignored the looks as he rapidly looted the corpses. The Beast Kings right at the entrance of the Red Zone weren’t too impressive, but they still had pretty good bloodlines.

And Beast Cores with Pure Life or Death-attunement were useful. Zac glanced at the nomad Beast Kings, who all shuddered and took a step back.

“I guess I shouldn’t attack my teammates.” Zac smiled. “See you guys around.”

With that, he flashed away, heading for the other side of the island. He couldn’t waste time hunting weak beasts if he wanted to find one of the drifting Calamity Mountains.

23

JOINT VENTURE

Zac wasted no time as he rushed across the island. If he pushed himself and used the glider when possible, he believed he’d be able to cross the whole disk in two hours. There were only six days until the next mission release, and he wanted to use two for his breakthrough. If he couldn’t find what he was looking for in the first two days, he’d either have to return or pick one of the leftover missions.

The latter wasn’t the end of the world, though, and the others were already prepared in the event he might not show up. For someone like him, there were always leftover tasks he could pick up and earn a decent chunk of Mana. And even if he somehow ended up empty-handed, he had other things to work on. Few guests had the energy and time to take on missions every month.

He wouldn’t be surprised if he were the only mortal in this place, which had one small benefit. He didn’t have to spend any time cultivating to form and upgrade the nucleus of his core. Instead, Zac could put that time toward collecting Mana or working on his other endeavors.

A sudden hint of dense Death made him stop in his tracks, and Zac curiously looked at a deep fissure. Most likely, it was a scar opened by the large peak that the storm had dragged off, and its passage exposed something interesting. Zac peered down, and his eyes lit up at the exposed cavern.

Inside, five pitch-black rose-like flowers grew, each one emitting an incredibly dense aura of Pure Death. His Life-attuned cells screamed at him to destroy those things, which probably meant they were something good for his other half. Zac jumped down, a sniff enough to confirm the roses weren’t poisonous. He carefully cut them off with a small axe imbued with the Dao of Pale Seal before storing them all in a treasure box.

There was nothing else inside the cave system, so Zac continued on his way, making a few more pit stops to pick items up from the dredged depths of the island. Most of the hidden caves were unguarded, but he had to take out a pack of Peak E-grade insects guarding a stone that had formed natural runes of Life. It didn’t waste much time, and Zac reached the island’s edge on schedule with a few new interesting items in his bag. This was just the entry layer of the Calamity, so they weren’t Supreme treasures. But they were all rare Peak-quality materials that might prove useful in the future.

To Zac’s surprise, he wasn’t the first arrival. A familiar face already waited at the edge, anxiously looking at the next island in the distance. It was one of the Beast Kings who had crossed the chasm with him before, one of the weirder ones. For one, it moved solo, but it also looked out of place. It was essentially a seven-meter-tall Death-attuned toad. It had no wings and no other means of flight. Instead, its back sported a set of translucent pustules, where black liquid sloshed inside.

The toad really was an odd one. Without any means of flight, it would be landlocked on an island for centuries until it finally became a Beast King. Species that didn’t even have the option to jump ship if a particularly nasty storm hit their island were bound to be disadvantaged in the Calamity.

But it wasn’t a weakling. Zac had run as fast as he could, yet this Early D-grade beast arrived ahead of him. Furthermore, it didn’t look winded at all.

“You’re pretty quick,” Zac said with surprise as he walked over, and he laughed upon getting a disdainful scoff in return.

This Beast King was clearly smarter than the average species. And upon thinking back, Zac realized it hadn’t joined the fight. It disappeared when the nomads and territorial beasts started exchanging attacks. The toad must have used some movement skill to start crossing the island while the other nomads kept the rabble busy.

It looked like the toad had planned to keep going, but its plan had hit a snag. There was another island not too far in the distance, but there was also a group of roving birds guarding the chasm. Seeing the situation, Zac had an idea.

“Want to make another jump before the storm gets too far away?”

The toad looked suspiciously at Zac before slowly nodding.

“How about this,” Zac said, pointing toward the next island. “You saw my strength earlier. I’ll deal with those flying things and any other beasts we can’t avoid. In return, you carry me across the continent. I want to keep going until I find a drifting mountain.”

The toad mutely looked at Zac, clearly with some disgust in its eyes. Zac gave it a thought before releasing his Branch of the Pale Seal to show wasn’t just a being of Life. His Death-attuned Dao wasn’t weakened when using his Life-attuned Body, but it didn’t have the sense of smoothness as when using the Branch of the Kalpataru.

The eruption of a powerful Dao Field made the toad shriek in alarm, and Zac looked on with interest as a black gust swallowed it, moving it hundreds of meters in an instant. It almost looked like Ogras and how he moved through shadows, though the method was clearly based around Death. And possibly Time, though Zac couldn’t understand exactly how.

“I’m just showing we’re on the same side!” Zac shouted. After a full minute, the toad hesitantly jumped back.

It released an enormous black tongue over ten meters long, seemingly trying to taste Zac’s Dao before looking down at Zac with confusion. Zac smiled as Death spread through his body, his eyes becoming pitch-black orbs of the Abyss.

“See? Same side,” Zac said.

After showing his Draugr form, there were no more objections. Zac had found himself a capable mount, and the two jumped off the ledge toward the next island, not bothering to wait for any more nomads. The flock of birds shrieked with delight upon seeing two lone targets, but their elation turned into horror as the corrosive links of [Love’s Bond] snatched up one bird after another.

Meanwhile, Zac utilized the free movement of [Abyssal Phase] to catch up with two Beast Kings and destroy them before moving toward the next target. The toad wasn’t completely helpless, either. Its tongue extended thirty meters and snatched up a few Peak E-grade birds. The birds were almost as large as the toad, but it managed to squeeze them into its belly. The predators became dinner, and the two continued on their way.

This time, only a small group of beasts emerged when they were about to land on the other shore, and Zac made short work of them without having to rely on any of his finishers.

“Alright, your turn,” Zac said upon stowing away the corpses, and he was surprised to see a hole open up on its belly.

The toad had a pouch similar to a kangaroo, along with the ability to perfectly seal it. Or was it just a second mouth leading into its stomach? The toad stamped impatiently on the ground as it pointed at its belly.

“You want me to get into the pouch?” Zac frowned, looking up at the face of the huge toad. “You’re not trying something here, right? You should know I’ll blast a hole in you if you try to eat me or something.”

The toad rolled its eyes in an incredibly human manner, once more pointing at the pouch before making a rapid series of signs with its hands that Zac couldn’t understand at all.

“Alright, alright,” Zac grunted.

The situation was pretty weird, but Zac resigned himself to fate as he crawled inside. The vision of him heroically standing atop the head of a Beast King as they crossed the lands was fast crumbling in his mind. At least the pouch was a lot comfier than expected. The walls were soft, and there was even an ambient atmosphere of Death that resembled a gathering array.

Then something wet touched him. Zac shrieked at the sudden feeling, but he quickly calmed down upon realizing it was only a two-meter baby toad who had buffed him with its tongue. The thing looked quite imposing, but it was only in Peak F-grade, probably unable to leave the pouch because of the environment.

Zac curiously looked at the toad, wondering why the Beast King allowed him to enter a spot normally reserved for its offspring. Most beasts would guard their young with their lives and hide their presence as much as possible. Was it a sign of trust? Zac couldn’t figure it out, and a sudden buff from the outside derailed his thoughts.

“What?” Zac said with annoyance as he peeked outside, only to find the mama toad expectantly looking down at him.

Then, a wave of Deathly Dao spread through the pouch, though it was only at the Late-fragment-stage.

“You want me to release my Dao for your child?” Zac said with a raised brow, getting a gentler buff in answer.

Essentially, the toad wanted a Dao Battery for its young. Zac wryly smiled as he released some of his Branch of the Pale Seal, letting it spread through the pouch. The baby toad released excited chattering sounds as it nudged closer. A moment later, the surroundings turned to a blur as the toad sped across the continent with speed twice what Zac could muster.

The toad had sealed most of the opening to its pouch, leaving enough space for Zac to peek outside, allowing him to confirm the beast was moving in the right direction. Though Zac could barely keep up with where they were going with how quickly they were moving. The surroundings kept shifting, making the view disorienting.

Rather than a skill, it seemed to be an inherited Bloodline Talent. Zac had already realized the black clouds it formed were made from the liquid it produced in its pustules. Zac also felt a bizarre pulse of Temporal Energy every time the surroundings shifted, confirming the toad was manipulating time to move faster.

‘Hey, Null, how is this affecting my time inside the Calamity?’

“This… creature, isn’t changing the passage of time, so it’s like normal.”

Zac nodded in understanding, guessing the toad used Time to speed itself up rather than create some Temporal Chamber.

The second continent was even bigger than the first, and the mountainous topography created incredibly ferocious gusts that could come out of nowhere. Yet it only took the toad an hour to pass the whole thing, at which point Zac got out to prepare for another fight. The two kept chasing across the Calamity like this, passing seven islands in quick succession.

The odds of running into another cultivator at this point were pretty low, and it was even less likely for someone to catch up to him if they followed him into the Calamity. Zac had a hard time imagining even a Dexterity-based E-grade cultivator keeping up with this pace for hours.

However, the speed didn’t come without a price. The toad looked exhausted when Zac emerged from the pouch for the seventh time. The odd vats retained less than one-third of its liquid, exposing a set of mysterious temporal stones sloshing about within. Moving at such speeds must have significantly drained its energy stores, and Zac glanced at the other shore.

Toad had managed to keep pace with the raging storm until now. Half the island was shrouded in a vast curtain of gold that prevented them from seeing anything of what lay beyond.

“We can take a break if you want,” Zac offered, but the beast stubbornly shook its head and drew three lines in the ground before making another set of incomprehensible signs.

“What?” Zac said, trying to understand its gestures.

It soon dawned on Zac that they were on the left line, and the toad’s destination was just two islands over. Zac could only let the toad keep rushing, and they soon reached the edge of the next island. This time, the scene on the other side was starkly different, and Zac gazed at the next island with marvel.

The toad was looking for the same place he was.

The mountain towered into the sky, hundreds of thousands of meters tall, with large swathes hidden by dense shrouds of both Life and Death-attuned clouds. It didn’t quite have the traditional pyramidal shape with a flat base, but looked like a briolette with a rounded bottom. Its massive size beggared comprehension, and it wasn’t the only thing that made it stand out. It had two of the miniature stars rotating around its base.

Not even the terrifying storms of the Calamity could dislodge the Hegemony of this natural fortress, and Zac looked on with marvel as the storm they’d followed was forced to split apart to pass by. Between its massive size and its guardian stars, it drifted about in the Calamity like a lone titan.

This wasn’t the only drifting Calamity Mountain, but they were quite rare. Finding one was a matter of luck, and it was exactly what Zac had been hoping for. Only these mountains, with their mile-long tunnel systems and hidden pathways, could provide both enough energy and a safe enough environment to break through with his soul.

It was a stroke of luck he’d encountered the toad, and he finally understood why it was so stressed. The mountain was moving quite fast, and it might have drifted out of sight if they’d been even half an hour late. The toad must have somehow known the Calamity Mountain’s route and rushed to reach it in time.

Zac was about to climb out to prepare for another crossing, but the toad pushed him back into the pouch.

“Stay inside?” Zac said, and the toad nodded.

The toad could fly much faster than his glider, so Zac was happy to oblige. It wasn’t mentioned in the information missives, but the mountains were bound to be the main targets for most cultivators. Even forests could survive on its slopes, meaning the odds of treasures surviving were much higher.

And with this mountain being only half a day’s travel away from the gate, there was a decent chance other guests would have ended up here. Zac would normally not be worried about being targeted. In fact, he would welcome it. However, he aimed to make a breakthrough, not fight and look for treasures this time. And by staying inside the pouch, he’d be able to sneak onto the mountain without being spotted.

The toad set off across the chasm, only stopping to let the side with the Death-attuned star turn toward them. There were no beasts guarding against their arrival, and they landed in a deathly forest without issue. The toad was still wary, glancing to its left and right as it kept running for a few more minutes. Only then did Zac emerge, looking around with interest.

“Here,” Zac said, throwing out a Death-attuned Cosmic Crystal. “A small payment. You worked a lot harder than me in the end.”

The toad eagerly snatched it and stuffed it into its mouth, letting out a satisfied croak. In return, it formed a rapid-fire series of signs again, pointing toward the top of the mountain.

“You’re telling me something dangerous is living on the peak?” Zac asked, getting an affirmative nod and a series of following signs. “And to not make a lot of noise on the slopes?”

A minute later, the toad ambled away, much more relaxed now that it had reached the drifting mountain before it moved out of reach. Zac thoughtfully watched it disappear among the trees before he swapped to his human form and flashed away in the opposite direction.

There was something off about that beast. Not that it tried to harm him, but rather the opposite. It was a bit stand-offish, but it lacked the thinly veiled brutality he saw in the eyes of the other nomads. It was just too intelligent and didn’t even seem native to the Calamity. Zac had no proof for this, but his instincts told him it wasn’t actually a wild Beast King but a domesticated one.

Whose pet it was and why it appeared here, Zac had no idea.

Zac was curious, but he had bigger fish to fry. He ran through the windswept forest before he found what he was looking for, a tunnel without any end. It wasn’t luck to stumble onto one so quickly—these entrances were all over the place. The drifting mountains of the Calamity were essentially beehives with innumerable tunnels crisscrossing the whole thing. It was more hollow than solid.

Perhaps that was the only way for such a huge mountain to float about freely without getting too heavy. No matter the reason, the thousands of tunnels created a unique situation thanks to the constantly rotating mountain. Powerful gusts full of energy entered the tunnels, constantly dragging more and more into its depths.

Meanwhile, the innards were completely protected from vicious storms, creating an incredible environment. In other words, the real dangers and opportunities waited within. And it was here Zac planned on seizing a cultivation cave to undergo his fourth reincarnation.

24

THREE FATES

The last rat fought against the suffocating chains, but a ruthless swing ended the struggle. Zac panted as he ripped [Black Death] out of the Beast King’s head, adding its corpse to the growing pile of carcasses in his Spatial Ring. Zac grimaced as he pushed back his leaking entrails into his gut, applying a paste while expending two healing brands to patch up the wound.

While pondering on the Dao in his cave back home, he’d always longed for adventure among the stars. But you always forget these small details. Adventures were grimy, and you often ended up leaking stuff that shouldn’t leave the confines of your body.

Over the past day, Zac had either ambushed or been ambushed over thirty times, and he was starting to get worn down. The beasts and packs which could make the Calamity Mountain’s prime real estate their homes weren’t messing around. It was no wonder no one guarded the slopes against interlopers. Why bother? The outsiders would die the moment they dared enter the tunnels.

At least he’d made good headway. When Zac entered the mountain, he’d continued straight toward its heart. The two attuned stars were in a locked orbit with the mountain, which meant one side of the mountain teemed with Death while the tunnels on the other side were filled with Life. He needed a little bit of both for his method, so he had to reach the center where the energies converged.

The fact that the pack of rats he’d stumbled onto were Life-attuned proved he was getting close. The pungent smell of blood lingered in the den even after storing the corpses. Predators hoping to find a wounded victor would soon arrive. Despite this, Zac didn’t immediately leave.

He followed the urgings of Verun in his mind until he reached a pile of what he hoped was mud. After pushing it away with the huge edge of [Gorehew], a radiant glimmer lit up the whole area. Zac looked at the thing curiously. It wasn’t a crystal, neither was it some stone or metal. It resembled a piece of dried bark containing incredible amounts of Divine Energy.

A small, dried piece from a C-grade tree, perhaps? Even if it was only a small piece and quite aged, it had once held incredibly lofty Daos of Life. It was definitely a D-grade Natural Treasure, perhaps even a Middle-stage one. The energy it released was to the point the whole cave started to vibrate.

It was the adjacent passage, a wind tunnel full of turbulent Death, that was being instigated by its natural enemy being so close by. Zac urgently stowed the treasure before running away, his hands burning upon touching the bark like a hot coal. Distant, avaricious roars were already echoing through the tunnels.

Zac grinned as he turned into an abyssal wraith, squeezing through a small crack to join the corridor of Miasmic winds. The rats had clearly understood that treasure was beyond what they could hold onto with their strength, so they had isolated its powerful energy emanations with the mud.

But their aggression was their folly. They’d attacked Zac for passing by outside their den, even if he had no intention of messing with them. By the time he fought his way inside, Verun had woken up from within his Spatial Ring, roaring with hunger. It had indicated in no uncertain terms there was something it wanted to eat here.

Since [Verun’s Bite] had reached Peak E-grade, it rarely showed any interest in materials. Verun doing so this time strongly indicated the piece of bark would be able to assist its breakthrough into a D-grade Spirit Tool. The only other thing he’d gotten his hands on so far was the mysterious drops Iz had given him after breaking through the first layer of his [Void Vajra Sublimation].

The Tool Spirit wanted to drink those drops, and Zac guessed it could act as a catalyst for elevating its spirit. But it was just a few drops, far from the pile of expensive materials Zac expected he’d need to gather to upgrade his weapon. Finally, he was making some progress, and the fact he could find useful High-grade materials was a promising sign.

Because if there were good things down here, then the upper layers of the Calamity were bound to have amazing treasures for both Alea and Verun. Now, he only needed a mission, preferably a long-term one, taking him back here. That way, he could earn Mana while treasure hunting rather than forking out 250 Mana a day.

In a second, Zac had moved hundreds of meters back and forth through the complicated network of stormy and calm tunnels. He found another slim crack and squeezed through, arriving in a separate set of tunnels. [Abyssal Phase] had been his go-to method to avoid dangerous situations and take shortcuts toward the center.

Zac continued for another hour until he found what he’d been looking for: a storm chamber. He’d arrived through a tunnel carrying Death-attuned winds. On the other side, another pathway poured out similar amounts of Life. Unsurprisingly, the chamber where the two energies met was a madhouse with ceaseless explosions like those that had assaulted him on his arrival to the Red Zone.

It was essentially a storm in a bottle, pushing up toward some unseen exhaust. From there, the chaotic storm would become the clouds that covered a good chunk of the Calamity Mountain.

Even Zac didn’t dare enter the storm chamber, let alone cultivate inside it. He wasn’t after the chamber itself but rather the streams. He looked around the area for a while but sighed, failing to find what he sought. But there were quite a few such chambers in the heart of the mountain, and Zac eventually struck gold.

The constant explosions led to cracks forming in the surrounding walls, and Zac found a small fissure leading to a sealed chamber just a few meters below another storm chamber. The whole cave constantly shuddered from the barrage, but it looked stable enough otherwise. More importantly, the isolating rocks that made up the Calamity Mountain couldn’t perfectly seal off the incredible amounts of energy and Dao trapped in the storm chamber.

The stone acted like a filter as the Daos of Life and Death squeezed through, providing a steady stream of calmed energies. However, being constantly infiltrated by opposing Daos was bound to weaken its integrity over time. Looking at the ceiling, Zac guessed it would break in a couple of years, increasing the size of the storm chamber. For now, it held, creating a hidden cultivation chamber suited for his needs.

The energy density was far beyond the normal tunnels, yet there was one problem making it less than ideal for his breakthrough. Due to the cracks leading into the cave from the Death-attuned side, the Daos weren’t in balance. Some Life emerged from the ceiling, but it wasn’t enough for his needs. Zac went to the opposite side of the cave, studying the small cracks in the wall.

Nothing but a few trickles of Life came out. It was clear the fissures weren’t as wide on this side. However, the rocks were weakened already, and Zac started to chip away with his Dao-empowered [Blighted Cut]. The Dao of Life that had been ingrained into the stone for years clashed with the Dao of Death in Zac’s attacks, and chips of rocks started to gather at his feet.

One hour later, his mad frenzy had damaged the wall enough to release roughly the same amount of energy from both sides. Adding more Life-attuned energies improved the density of energy and Dao even further, and a miniature storm was already brewing in his cave. Zac took a deep breath as he felt the agitated Daos dance around him.

This was perfect.

Zac spent the next hour installing one array after another. First, he set up two gathering arrays, one on each side of the cave. It helped keep the energies slightly separated, preventing them from exhausting themselves before becoming fuel for his cultivation. Next came isolation, trapping, and killing arrays, turning his makeshift cave into a proper cultivation chamber. After some hesitation, Zac even installed a wall-breaking array on the ceiling.

If someone snuck into the cave to attack him, he could bring the storm down on their head.

Even then, Zac didn’t start his cultivation session. He silently sat in the middle of the brewing storm, hidden by an invisibility array. Deliberating. Waiting. Part of it was because he wanted to see if someone had followed him or been attracted by the sound of his remodeling. An assassin could be lying in wait until Zac lowered his guard. But the bigger reason was that this was his final chance to turn back.

The idea had been born during his years of secluded cultivation, and it had only grown stronger as time passed. The third reincarnation was similar to his Minor Sublimation in that it was a major threshold. The method called the result a Three Fates Soul, representing his three rebirths. More importantly, it could be considered a crossroad where you had to make a decision—a decision of what direction you wanted to take.

Enlightened by the heavenly revolutions of Life and Death, the soul embraces the Samsara. One begets nine, and nine begets the one. Balance is at the heart of Heavenly Law. For one to rise, another must fall. One to lead, nine to follow. Reincarnate to align with your path, become one with the Cosmos.

Nine layers of the Abyss carry the Heaven. Nine Heavens seal the Abyss. Relinquish the nine, the Boundless Dharma, abject of self.

Nine returns to the one.

Such was the description of the third reincarnation. The manual was as vague as ever, but Zac wasn’t the same person as the one who almost got himself killed when undergoing the first breakthrough. Thanks to years of studying Life, Death, and their intrinsic nature, he was no longer a clueless Progenitor. And aided by innumerable mini-epiphanies, he’d already unlocked the secrets of the third and fourth reincarnations.

The meaning was simple: pick a side. Between Life and Death, one needed to be a leader while the other followed. Zac still wasn’t certain if the [Nine Reincarnations Manual] was really Buddhist, but he doubted it. Something about it seemed different. It was more Daoist in nature than Buddhist, though it borrowed certain theories and terms from the Sangha.

It was even possible the original version had come from the previous era and then been refitted to better suit the cultivation system of the Era of Order. It was impossible to tell with only the first five layers, unaware of where it was leading.

What Zac could deduce was that the [Nine Reincarnations Manual] was not meant for true Edgewalkers such as himself. Even Vilari, with her nigh-complete absence of affinity with the Dao of Life, could cultivate the first layer. If you had an uncommonly high affinity with both Life and Death, you had a chance at reaching the third reincarnation.

But Chaos cultivators were a thing from the previous era. Those constitutions couldn’t really form under a Heaven where the Dao of Chaos was still broken. No matter the original intent and method of the manual, you now had to pick either Life or Death to be the leader. In other words, you’d form an attuned core.

The attuned sides would no longer use the concept of clashing Daos to continue progress. The nine following the one would strictly become a cultivation resource—Life supporting Death, or vice versa.

Apart from picking a side, you could also keep your soul unattuned. It was what the ‘Boundless Dharma, abject of self’ meant. However, Zac had a feeling that relinquishing the nine wasn’t optimal. Nine was the utmost. To relinquish the nine most likely meant the ceiling of your soul would be lower when continuing through the reincarnations.

Very few methods were so flexible that they could be branched this way, yet Zac wasn’t satisfied. Why pick when you could have it all?

Zac wanted his soul to be attuned to Life and Death. Just like his body. Just like his path. But to accomplish that, he’d have to step off the beaten path and rewrite the method to better suit his needs.

That by itself wasn’t anything special. Most elites had already started doing so with their manuals by the time they approached Hegemony. You used the foundations the predecessors had laid to build something new and unique. If you blindly followed the heritages of others, you’d only ever be a follower and never a leader.

In reality, most such creations were destined to fall into obscurity, often disappearing when their inventors succumbed on the road of cultivation. A few progenitors found great success, and their ideas would form the foundations for the following generations.

However, it was more than a small overhaul in Zac’s case. He wanted to model his Soul Core after his blueprint. On the one hand, Zac felt it made sense. His Cosmic Core was a mirror of his Daos, so why shouldn’t his soul be one as well? On the other, it was too difficult. Translating the concepts of energy to the intangible mystery of the soul was easier said than done.

Ultimately, Zac knew doing it all at once was too much. Like Lord Engo said before, his core was based on partly borrowed knowledge. So he came up with a plan that he felt would take him a step in the right direction.

The [Nine Reincarnations Manual] seemingly followed the cycle of one to nine and nine to one to reform and refine. During this reincarnation, he could throw either set of Outer Cores into his central core, creating a truly attuned core. But what if he picked both? Instead of returning to one, he’d create an Inexorable Soul Core and an Evolutionary Soul Core.

The concept wasn’t as advanced as his Cosmic Core, but it was the first step toward true unity. From there, he could keep working at it until he fused the two halves back together at a future reincarnation. After all, with his Void Emperor bloodline, he was bound to delve into the truths of the Void sooner or later. For now, he was benefitting from the Void without understanding, like a child. But that would have to change sooner or later.

By the time he understood the Void, his path would grow wider, allowing him to take it in more directions. The trinity could become a Duality, possibly even a singularity of unmatched prowess. Or he could keep things as is while properly using all three of his Daos in combat rather than two.

All that was an incredibly distant goal, though. Zac didn’t even know how to begin to study the Void of Dao. His only clue was Ultom, which might contain some information missives. For now, Zac only needed to create a Soul Core representing each of his sides.

Such a change to the [Nine Reincarnations Manual] was much more straightforward. The manual and array were already designed to either form a core of Life or Death. He “only” needed to do both at once, with small alterations, while providing extra energy to form two central cores instead of one. Of course, Zac had long since plotted out the critical changes to the method, using some of the extra lake water to ensure he wasn’t overestimating himself.

Everything was in place, yet he hesitated.

There were some real risks with this plan, and not only because he was planning on breaking through in a place like the Calamity. He could keep his soul unattuned and worry about this issue in the future. Harmonizing his cultivation to align with his path was obviously better than not doing so, but he was still considered the younger generation. A hasty decision in the E-grade could lead to disaster further down the road.

The hours passed, and Zac made his choice. He hadn’t gotten this far by playing it safe, and his instincts told him to go big. He needed to keep grasping for power if he wanted to have a chance at catching up with his mother. Or even surviving the deadly gauntlet of Ultom. The moment he started to back down when faced with danger or a challenge, his path would grow narrower.

Filled with conviction, Zac’s eyes snapped open. It was time to start. Like the previous breakthroughs, it all began with a final cycle of Mental Energy through the array disks to power the process. But even before he began, there was a change of pace. Today, nine cycles wouldn’t be followed by nine more.

This time, he took out both array disks at once.

25

NINE TO LEAD, ONE TO FOLLOW

Zac couldn’t help but give the two Soul Strengthening Arrays in his hands a second look. Years of having Zac’s Daos channel through their pathways and absorbing the ambient energy had completely transformed them. The previously matte disks now glowed a deep hue of gold and black, giving off powerful emanations of Life and Death.

Even if he knew what he needed to do, Zac was a bit worried looking at the arrays. He’d never attempted cycling both halves at once, but he didn’t have much choice. Nine to lead, one to follow. The first cycle he began would set the schedule for the third reincarnation, preventing the other side from taking charge. It would only be able to chase the one who came before, fueling its ascension.

Zac took a steadying breath, making sure he didn’t have any lingering issues after having fought his way through the mountain. Only upon confirming everything was in order did he begin. Zac’s eyes gleamed with madness and determination as he split his focus. Storms of Dao-empowered Mental Energy entered the disks while Zac focused on the Outer Cores in his mind.

As his central core began to drain, the Outer Cores accelerated, quickening their dance of Life and Death. Minutes passed, and the arrays began glowing as they transformed his energy streams. For a moment, Zac had a strange vision. He’d become the Calamity Mountain, holding its satellite stars in his hands. The tunnels were his pathways, and the storm chambers his soul.

He didn’t know if he imagined things, but it almost seemed like the mountain resonated with his thoughts. The Daos stirred, and the vibrations from above increased in frequency. The feeling only lasted a moment before it was gone, and Zac refocused on his cultivation. He had his hands full just dealing with the cycles.

Channeling both array disks at once wasn’t just an issue of multi-tasking. It was a linear leap in difficulty simply because of the energy required to fuel the process. He needed two sets of Mental Energy and two sets of Dao each time, which rapidly drained his central core. Thankfully, Zac had enough to spare.

He had already absorbed one and a half Moss Crystal, each containing almost unfathomable amounts of Mental Energy. His central core had already passed the limits of the third layer of his method years ago, which was the only reason he dared attempt something like this.

The remaining Moss Crystal in his mind helped, lessening his burden by providing a third of the energy that went into the refinement circuits. One Soul Crystal after another also appeared in his hands, right atop the two array disks. The powerful pull from the arrays siphoned some of the densely packed energy from within the crystals, further lessening his burden.

Zac spared no expense this time, knowing he was pushing it by simultaneously channeling both arrays. The moment the Soul Crystals atop the disks had been drained of their most easily-accessible energy, he dropped them on the ground and crushed them with the back of his hands. A spiritual cloud was released around him, entering his pores. And from there, it went to his aperture, while two new crystals appeared on the disks.

An hour later, the currents of empowered Mental Energy came crashing back through his hands. Normally, it would appear like a healing rain. The cores that needed to be built had long since been built, and his central core was already at capacity. The only place the empowered Mental Energy could go was into the Outer Cores, filling them with powerful but unstable force.

Today, the effect was a bit different. One side didn’t take charge, gaining power while suppressing the other. Instead, an arms race began within the Soul Aperture. The Outer Cores madly dashed to absorb the incoming energy, seemingly trying to get one over on their opponent. The Life-attuned cores were especially aggressive, perhaps encouraged by the Pure Life naturally coursing through his body.

The golden spheres even tried to destroy some of their opponent’s energy, but Zac fiercely suppressed those actions. Ideally, he’d spend half the time of each cycle in each form to balance the two sides, but the Duplicity Core didn’t work like that. Ultimately, he’d settled on performing the whole thing in his human form.

It wasn’t a matter of his sides being weaker or stronger. The reason was simply that Miasma didn’t have as profound an effect on his human form as Divine Energy had on his Draugr self. Zac would have to rely on Natural Treasures of both attunements to pass through the gauntlet, which was best done in his human form.

Sometimes, it felt like the cores in his aperture were separate entities to him, flying about of their own volition as they communed with the Dao. Ultimately, they were part of him, and Zac wouldn’t let them act as they wanted today. With destruction being banned in his aperture, Life and Death could only compete by gathering energy.

And since each side was provided an equal amount of energy, the two armies were locked in an even struggle. Even his Dao Avatar of Branch of the War Axe joined in on the fun. It started flitting about through his aperture, sometimes swinging a black axe according to the Inexorable Stance. Other times it floated on a golden core, his axe teeming with Life and boundless possibility.

It was Zac’s way of ensuring the two sides were kept equal while simultaneously steering the process toward his intended cores. If one side got the advantage and rocked the fragile balance in his Soul Aperture, then Conflict would help push them back down.

One circuit after another was completed this way, each boosted by his Middle-stage Dao Branches. By the fifth revolution, Zac started to feel the strain. Even with Soul and Moss Crystals helping out, he faced an uphill battle. He needed bigger guns. An iridescent pearl appeared on his hand, and Zac’s mouth shot forward to gobble it up.

It was a Natural Treasure, normally meant to hold as you cultivated the soul. Today, it became fodder as Zac staunchly crushed the pearl into dust then swallowed. It had been a gift from the Undead Empire, a rare item from some hidden realm of the Eidolon. Getting one’s hands on such an item wasn’t even possible on the frontier, yet this cultivation treasure was reduced to fodder for his breakthrough.

Zac’s body grew agitated, and it started to absorb the Mental Energy from the surroundings and the Moss Crystal much faster. A refreshing wave entered his central core, allowing him to keep going.

The outer spheres in his Soul Aperture soon turned into small suns, mirroring those floating about in the Calamity. The previous sensation that he’d become one with the mountain returned far stronger, and Zac could tell it wasn’t just an illusion. Had the mountain formed a spirit that resonated with his breakthrough? Zac had no idea whether that was good or bad, but he couldn’t do much about it.

He had already jumped onto the tiger’s back and needed to ride this storm to the end.

Another cycle was completed with the aid of the pearl and dozens of Soul Crystals. Zac was buried to his knees in Soul Crystal shards, but he didn’t care. They still released some lingering Mental Energy, and Zac took any help he could get.

The Outer Cores started vibrating ominously after the energy of the sixth cycle returned. They moved far faster than normal, waging an invisible war by following their heavenly trajectories. The patterns released an invisible pressure, making his whole Soul Aperture groan. Six revolutions were usually the point Zac where stopped channeling his Dao when practicing the [Nine Reincarnations Manual]. But not today.

Zac initiated the seventh cycle, at which point the array disks broke free from his grasp and started rotating around his torso. Their movements mirrored the Outer Cores in his mind, following the heavenly trajectories of Life and Death. They generated a mysterious resonance in the cave that took control over the ambient Dao.

The previously wild energies in the cave were attracted, and Zac was happy to see some of the attuned clouds enter the hovering disks. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. Zac could tell he wouldn’t be able to finish the hour-long circuit without further assistance. The Kalpataru tree in his aperture had started withering. Similarly, the oppressive aura of the Pale Seal was weakening, the whole thing fading into a turbid grey.

His soul was drained beyond what it could sustain, and the truths of his path were drying up. All the while, the Outer Cores grew increasingly difficult to control. Zac’s body was in perfect condition, yet he felt like a dried out corpse. Despite that, Zac felt incredibly alive. There was a sense of victory and accomplishment from simply walking down a path you created of your own volition.

He was no longer dancing to the tune of others. He was creating a new future with his own hands. Of course, that feeling of freedom did little to help with his lacking resources. Around the halfway mark of the seventh cycle, Zac reached his limit. He’d hoped to finish the whole circuit before reaching this point, but simultaneously using both arrays had been a monumental drain.

At least his performance was up to par with his previous breakthroughs, even when the difficulty was more than twice as great. Besides, the pearl wasn’t the only thing he’d prepared. A torrent of pure, unblemished Dao poured out from the central core as the floodgates of [Spiritual Void] opened wide. The currents passed by the waning Dao Avatars, nourishing their source before entering the Array Disk.

Zac had already confirmed that his Void Self of the heart had allowed him to control the Hidden Nodes in his body freely. Finally. He could turn them on and off at will, preventing them from competing for resources. There were few situations where he didn’t want his three Void Nodes to passively keep running, but his elevated state also helped with his control.

For example, he could tell the [Void Heart] which energies to eat and which to leave behind, including energies that weren’t even harmful to him. Similarly, he could tell [Purity of the Void] what to focus its purification on, another ability that would have saved him a lot of headaches over the past years.

And he could sense how much Dao the perpetually hungry node in his mind could hold. It was no longer a voracious enigma but three separate containers—one for each of his Daos. There wasn’t more than 10% of his total stores for each of his Daos, but it was incredibly dense and pure. Ultimately, the true use of [Spiritual Void] was to temporarily bolster his Daos by almost a full stage rather than acting as a Dao Battery.

The Hidden Node gave Zac a much-needed break to recover some of what he’d lost. When the refined energy returned half an hour later, he could better guide them into the rampaging Outer Cores.

The whole aperture was shuddering by this point, but Zac just started the next cycle.

Halfway through the eighth, the stores of [Spiritual Void] started to run out, and Zac had no choice but to continue onto treasures. One item after another was either placed against his forehead or chewed and swallowed, each something that would create waves in the Zecia Sector. Not even his body could properly utilize all the amazing items when wasted this way, but he didn’t have much of an option. He needed a lot of energy and fast.

The discordant pile of treasures left him with a new set of toxins just days after purifying all the filth from his body, but they allowed him to narrowly squeak by the eighth cycle. At that moment, the Outer Cores essentially broke free from his control, aggravating their struggle. His aperture was filled with almost unbelievable levels of energy, to the point even the sealed Remnants stirred.

The cave was drowning in light by the two array disks, and energy was dragged in from the tunnels above, forming radiant and nebulous clouds around him. Zac could tell the arrays were barely holding on. Still, the disks were made by one of the most talented Array Masters in Twilight Harbor, using the sturdiest materials available.

Hopefully, they’d survive the final push.

The ninth cycle was the final and the utmost, returning toward the one. It was the last opportunity to infuse the much-needed extra boost to make the impossible possible, and Zac began rousing the two slumbering energies within his body.

Zac had made sure to retain ample reserves of Creation Energy in his body and Oblivion Energy in his soul upon entering the Perennial Vastness. You never knew when you needed an ace, whether it was to protect your life or break through. Luckily, nothing too dangerous had happened since arriving, which allowed him to use the energy for their intended purpose.

Meanwhile, Zac took out a small vial, the very one he’d gotten from Iz, containing the [Wreathstar Nectar]. Five drops remained after breaking through the [Void Varja Sublimation]. This time, Zac swallowed the drop before the real hurdle had even arrived.

It wasn’t that he was so certain he’d succeed that he took the drop in advance. Rather, he needed to rely on its mysterious properties to tide him over for the whole cycle. A fresh wind swept through his body, and dozens of streams of energy sprouted out of nowhere before they came crashing toward Zac’s Soul Aperture.

The streams entered the almost completely dimmed central core and the withered Dao Avatars who had been drafted beyond their limits. The center of his soul flickered to life, and his exhaustion was temporarily swept aside. The withered tree bloomed, once again spreading its divinity. Similarly, the Iron Maiden released a deep hum, seemingly coming from the depths of the underworld.

It wasn’t the nectar that powered his soul. It was the latent energy from all the treasures he’d just swallowed. He had only managed to use a small amount of their energy before, while the rest started to dissipate. The true purpose of the [Wreathstar Nectar] was to put your body in a hungry state after a breakthrough, letting you absorb huge amounts of energy to stabilize your foundations.

In Zac’s case, he used the nectar to let his exhausted soul pull one last batch of energy from the treasures before it was too late. Even the swirling clouds of Life and Death around him were dragged into his pores and channeled into his Soul Aperture. There, they were reforged through the filter of his Soul Apertures before being pushed toward the array disks that were now moving so fast, they’d formed two bands.

Zac also infused his Creation and Oblivion Energy into these streams, elevating it even further. It entered the Array Disk, which started to crackle ominously. Just as he was approaching the zenith of his method, so were the disks reaching the limits of their endurance. Furthermore, infusing Creation and Oblivion had a mysterious effect on their trajectories, and in turn, the whole cave.

Initially, the odd ripple effect only affected Zac’s sealed cave. But as the ninth cycle approached its end, the ripples spread outward, completely unbothered by the isolating rocks. It was hard to tell where he ended and the mountain began, and he felt like his tendrils stretched for miles in every direction. His path was made law in the area, and he was becoming the heart of the mountain.

And when the heart beat to another tune than the rest of the body, odd changes were bound to occur. If he looked outside the Calamity Mountain right now, would the locked rotations of the attuned stars have changed their trajectories?

All stray thoughts were pushed aside as the final cycle came crashing back. As with previous breakthroughs, the beleaguered array disks exploded when they finished their task. Two huge swirls appeared to his sides, one golden and one black. The ambient energies were finally starting to be dragged into the vortices in earnest, but Zac barely noticed. His mind was fully turned inward.

Normally, Zac would have almost lost his mind by the billowing wave of Divinity and Death that raged through his Soul Aperture. Yet, thanks to his elevated Heart, his mind was clear as ever. His Void Self even helped momentarily keep the rampaging energies in check, allowing him to proceed with the plan.

The original method called for using the incredible force and accumulated pressure built up over two cycles to shatter the central core. From there, you’d shatter one outer core after another of the attunement you picked, infusing its essence into the cloud. Finally, you’d detonate the nine leftover cores simultaneously. That would unleash a tremendous shockwave that forced the mixed dust together and left you with an attuned core and a nebula of its opposing element spiraling around it.

The soul would essentially be a galactic core, and you built a galaxy of small attuned systems. The number of stars needed for the fourth reincarnation wasn’t set. It depended on your Dao and your path. The loftier your goals and the greater your comprehension, the more stars you could birth in your galaxy.

The problem was, Zac had completely turned the method on its head. The first cycle was supposed to set the stage. The empowered side would imprint its Dao onto the central core, creating the fault lines that would prompt it to crack later. But the Outer Cores had been busy fighting each other during his dual cycle.

Meanwhile, his central core was far sturdier than normal thanks to the Moss Crystal’s continuous impartment. As things stood, his Soul Aperture was liable to crack before the central core would. He had to bring in a hammer to smash the thing himself.

Time was of the essence. Cracks were already appearing in the far edges of his aperture, proving it was not just one endless space. This was one of the riskier parts of the plan, but Zac hadn’t discovered any better options. His Void Self found it harder and harder to maintain clear thoughts, but he forcibly gathered his will and snatched up a large amount of energy from both elements.

Zac pushed the opposing sides together before infusing a hefty amount of Conflict to act as an accelerant. He’d essentially built a makeshift bomb in his head, capable of an eruption like the ones outside in the Calamity. However, the bomb didn’t fly toward the central core. It swerved, passing through a hidden gate, appearing in the secret subdimension where the Remnants rested.

The bomb went off, a rune shattered, and madness poured forth.

26

RESONANCE

Unbridled destructive urges and mad exuberance fought for dominion as a set of Remnants squeezed out from the crack in their prison. Accompanying them was a storm of accumulated energies that had been filtered by the profound patterns crafted by Be’Zi and the System.

Yet, when the second set of Remnants attempted to follow in their wake, a nine-layered gate appeared to seal them inside. Conflict, Life, and Death, three by three by three, bolstered by an unyielding heart and an immense amount of Mental Energy. The still-trapped Remnants raged and railed against the barrier that barred their path to freedom, but they found themselves unable to bring it down.

The first set stopped for a moment, but their desire to unleash their madness upon the world won over their desire to free their compatriots. They surged forward, crashing through the hidden gate leading to Zac’s true Soul Aperture. Zac didn’t try to stop them. He bolstered their momentum with his Dao while gently guiding them forward.

Right at the Moss Crystal.

The undying wills inside the Remnants needed very little prodding to target the incredibly energy-dense gemstone that just so happened to float very close to the exit of the prison. Both Oblivion and Creation were processes that needed energy, and the Remnants were always kept in a drained state inside the prison. Right now, they only had around 15% of the energy compared to when Zac found them, and the Moss Crystal was a way for them to fuel up.

But a vast, alien consciousness spread through Zac’s aperture just as the two scrambling Remnants were about to reach the emerald crystal. It didn’t possess the splinters’ desolation or the shards’ exuberance. Instead, it was filled with acceptance. And the hunger to grow. Zac inwardly smiled. It looked like Mossy couldn’t sit still with those little calamities making their way over.

The Moss Crystal released an enormous amount of Mental Energy, forming an emerald shroud that tried to swallow and suffocate the two Remnants. But clearly, the discarnate consciousness of Mossy had underestimated what it was dealing with. The Remnants weren’t some easy prey, and they teamed up when targeted by an outsider.

They released powerful waves of energy that either destroyed or subverted Mossy’s spiritual quagmire as they inched closer. All while giving out their insidious promises to Mossy. Even Zac could hear the whispers of destruction and possibility targeted at the crystal, but he did nothing to stop their corruption.

He let the two tie each other up while he dealt with the volatile situation in his Soul Aperture. The shroud of Creation and Destruction released by the prison had increased the agitation of the energies, to the point large scars appeared at the edge of space. If those two Daos were left unchecked, they’d turn his whole breakthrough on his head.

Zac spent the next couple of seconds trapping the two clouds before they mixed with the ambient clouds of Life and Death. Some of it slipped through the cracks, but there wasn’t much Zac could do about it. The escaped Creation and Oblivion would likely slip into his reformed soul, but he had the experience and skills to deal with that in the future.

It looked like the battle between Mossy and the Remnants wouldn’t take long, which was an immense relief. Incredible amounts of Divinity and Death had already been dragged into his Soul Aperture by the vortices formed from the array disks. The Outer Cores had absorbed more than they could withstand, making them ticking time bombs.

Luckily, it was just as Zac expected. Mossy, especially not the fragmented consciousness hidden within its crystal, had no Dao Heart to speak of. It had never encountered real trouble as it grew to cover Emerald Eye. As such, it was incredibly ill-equipped to deal with the urgings of the two ancient wills inside the Splinter of Oblivion and Shard of Creation.

The previously radiant green had become mottled, and the crystal groaned ominously. This was it. Zac finally entered the fray in the most direct way possible—launching his central core right at the battling sides. The central core was over five times as large as the emerald crystal, and it looked like a meteor about to shatter the core to pieces.

‘The weak light hurts. Betrays,’ a sigh echoed through Zac’s mind as his core drew closer. ‘So be it. We both fade. But Moss remains.’

Zac braced himself but did nothing to prevent the incredible implosion that swallowed both his central core and the Remnants. Zac’s core was instantly ground to dust, and he ignored the soul-rending pain as he erected barriers around the lingering remnants of Mossy’s fading consciousness.

Having sealed the final vestiges of Mossy’s trap, Zac breathed in relief. His breakthrough was still in an incredibly precarious situation, but this was one major hurdle dealt with. For years, he’d known a piece of Mossy hid in the depths of the Moss Crystals. It had concealed itself well and never done anything except silently observe.

But not even a mighty dragon can subdue the local snake. The moment Zac realized what was going on, he’d started scheming for Mossy’s demise. Having another consciousness inside your soul when you reforged it was incredibly dangerous, especially if the soul was hostile.

It was easy for impressions and characteristics to slip inside at a moment of such weakness. And if Mossy wanted, it would have been able to launch an attempt to take over his body. One reason he’d targeted the Moss Crystal was that he needed its massive stores of Mental Energy to fuel two cores instead of one. However, getting rid of Mossy to continue the process was just as important.

The Remnants were much sturdier than Zac’s central core, but even they could not come out of that sudden implosion unscathed. The lights surrounding them had mostly faded as they emerged from the blast zone, their surfaces covered in cracks and scars that leaked tremendous amounts of energy.

Zac found it increasingly difficult to rouse his soul after it had been reduced into a cloud of swirling dust, but he readied himself for another battle. However, he watched with surprise as the two Remnants voluntarily fled back toward their brethren, entering the prison of their own accord. They didn’t even look at the great cloud of vaguely emerald-green that had mixed with the dust from Zac’s soul.

All that Mental Energy was left on the table. Zac had thought he’d have to wrangle and throw them back, but it looked like they’d had enough of the outside. Or perhaps they knew the prison wasn’t long for the world. The cage for the Remnants had never been a permanent solution, and he’d known since first getting the runes installed that they’d sooner or later fail.

The prison hadn’t been maintained since he fled Orom because the mysterious sigils rebuffed his attempts to repair or bolster them. Two runes had already broken apart during his secluded cultivation. Even the one he’d destroyed would shatter in a year or so, Zac only hastened the schedule a bit.

With each rune crumbling, the next one would last even less time. If nothing changed, Zac guessed the prison would be gone before he even entered Ultom. Of course, that was a worry for later. Now, he had to stop his Soul Aperture from exploding from the rampant energies.

The new batch of escaped Creation and Oblivion had created another round of mayhem by the time Zac managed to trap it, to the point there was now a replica of the Calamity inside his Soul Aperture. The whole miniature cosmos was a constant battlefield full of eruptions. Each collision put Zac’s Outer Cores under further duress, not to mention the aperture itself.

Zac took a deep breath as he imposed his will on the chaos, beginning with the spreading dust cloud that was a mix of his central core and the ownerless energy from the Moss Crystal. Two small swirls appeared a moment later. One spun clockwise, while the other one counter-clockwise. In all other regards, they were the same.

For now.

The swirls started gathering up Zac’s soul before it drifted away, allowing him to turn his attention to the rest. The other parties, his Outer Cores and the native energy of the Calamity, weren’t as easily controlled. But Zac was unrelenting. True, on the outside, he was just a small E-grade cultivator—an ant compared to the true masters of the Multiverse. But inside his aperture, he might as well be the Heavens themselves. His will was akin to a divine decree, and he refused to let anything revolt.

From Primordial Chaos, Yin and Yang were born—the delimited Dao. In the same fashion, Zac’s aperture was soon split between Life and Death. In the middle were two vaguely green spirals turning in opposite directions. Right behind them, the Dao Avatars of Kalpataru and Pale Seal hovered. It felt like they towered toward the Heavens, reaching thousands of miles in height, each a monolith floating in space.

The soul shroud rotated in a plane spiral around them like petals. And behind, nine cores floated in an orderly line, each vibrating with barely contained energy. Surrounding the Divine Cores were opalescent streaks of Creation, which attracted all the Life-attuned energies in the aperture to its side. A similar scene took place on the other side, and it only took five minutes for Zac to completely separate the two.

It really looked like he had created two cosmic flowers, where the stamen and core were attuned while the petals were yet unblemished. But that was about to change. The innermost attuned cores floated into the center of the swirling galaxies, dragging with it a huge amount of ambient attunement. The cores and their tails passed through the respective Dao Avatars and were given a final anointment in Zac’s Dao.

Zac infused his will, and the two cores shattered simultaneously, unleashing years of condensed and refined Dao. Most of it drifted into the swirling clouds, the small motes fusing with soul dust and painting them with their path. Some were thrown over to the opposing spiral, but it was rebuffed and relegated to the outer reaches of the spiral.

One explosion after another followed as Zac detonated the Outer Cores. The glittering dust of his refined inner core gained an increasingly majestic aura. Gone was the matte pastel green leftover from the Moss Core. One spiral now shone an oppressive black, and it felt like just looking at it would suck your soul inside. Opposing it was a divine spiral of utmost Life, illuminating half of his Soul Aperture in magical light.

As the dust grew denser from the constant infusions of energy and Dao, it started to condense toward its center. It almost looked like the two cosmic flowers furled their flowers back into a bulb by the time the sixth set of Outer Cores had erupted. Surrounding the flower bulbs were now thin bands of opposing elements, like the rings of Saturn.

Each half of his budding soul seemed to follow the plan of the third reincarnation, yet Zac frowned. The clouds of Miasma and Divine Energy had grown dim to the point they would barely last through the process of exploding three final sets of Outer Cores. New energy kept pouring in from the radiant vortices around him, but the ambient energy in the cave was dwindling.

This place wasn’t like the mysterious temple of the Keys of Ascension, where the ambient energy was kept steady no matter how much he absorbed. He’d misjudged how much energy could be dragged through the cracks and the stone itself when he broke through. He’d expected the energy vacuum to create a natural pull, but it appeared he was wrong. Either that or the storm chamber above exerted a far greater pull than he.

Either case, the situation had now become a bottleneck that couldn’t be fixed by Nexus Crystals alone. Even worse, integrating the Outer Cores into the dust cloud was just the first step. After, Zac needed far more energy to create a conflict powerful enough to refine and compress his creations. As things were, the Evolutionary and Inexorable Cores were more than one hundred times the size of the previous central core in his Soul Aperture.

This wasn’t a good thing. Part of the increase in size was all the added energy from the Moss Crystal, Outer Cores, and the ambient energy that had been dragged into the soul spirals. But most of it came from the two nascent cores being so porous they could barely be considered solids. The original final step of the method called for detonating the remaining nine Outer Cores, but Zac couldn’t do that. He’d already given them to his second core.

The only fuel remaining were two huge clouds of Creation and Oblivion that Zac had sealed with barriers of Mental Energy—the spillover from the Remnants he didn’t dare infuse into his new cores. But did he dare collide those two forces into each other? Obviously not. Even if he didn’t kill himself, he might end up spawning Chaos in his soul, something he wasn’t prepared to handle.

Zac scrambled for solutions, throwing all kinds of attuned treasures into the two vortices as the seventh set of Outer Cores were infused into soul dust. Eventually, his gaze turned to the ceiling. There was one place where all the energy he needed was readily available.

The problem was, if he broke the ceiling, his arrays would be torn apart. His breakthrough would be on full display, and with these amounts of Dao and Energy fluctuations, it’d seem as though a heavenly treasure had been born in the heart of the mountain. It wouldn’t be long before beasts and possibly cultivators arrived.

By the time the eighth set of Outer Cores was assimilated, the ambient energy in his cave had essentially been reduced to zero, and he barely managed to supply the needed amount of energy to recompense. If things progressed this way, he’d end up with two mottled Soul Cores in such a bad state he might even emerge weaker than before the breakthrough. It’d take centuries to fix this issue after the soul dust hardened and lost its malleability.

He couldn’t wait any longer.

Zac gritted his teeth as he grabbed the activation token. A deep thud echoed through the hidden cave as the wallbreaker array startled to life. For a moment, nothing changed, except for five trickles of sand raining from above. Then, all hell broke loose as the ceiling completely collapsed, raining huge blocks of stones all around Zac.

A barrier had already sprung up to push away the falling boulders to the sides of the cave, but what came in their wake was far more deadly. Zac found himself looking up at a five hundred meter tall chute, chock-full of ferocious winds of Life and Death. Winds that were now cascading toward him thanks to the sudden downdraft.

Zac was immediately beset with trouble, and not just because of the wounds that kept appearing across his body. The two vortices had a seemingly endless capacity to swallow energy, but only of their attunement. Meanwhile, the storm crashing down was a confusing jumble of energies that moved at incredible speeds. The vortices couldn’t extract what they needed from that confusing mess.

He needed to help them out.

Thankfully, he had just the thing, and two alien energies were forced out of his Soul Aperture. Two streams, this time unblemished by Conflict, passed through the pathways on his shoulders and into his arms. Creation in his left, Oblivion in his right. He didn’t keep them condensed this time, instead opting to release the energies as small clouds that swirled around their respective vortices.

The higher Daos acted as beacons, dragging their subordinate paths toward them. Yet it wasn’t enough. The energies were too unruly, to the point it was impossible to make much use of them. Zac barely scratched the surface of the vast energies coursing through the chute.

Releasing the energies did have one more effect, though. The odd sensation of being one with the mountain returned, this time more palpable than ever. A deep groan rippled through the cave, and the fierce winds inside the storm chamber simply froze. Zac looked up with shock, only for his vision to shift.

Suddenly, he saw the vast skyscapes of the Calamity, not a hint of land across the horizon. A sense of boundless freedom filled him as he became one with the sky. Then, Zac pushed through the clouds at the edge of the storm, at which point he found himself sitting inside the cave again as the chaos resumed.

In his mind, a strong desire lingered, one not of his own making.

“You want this energy? That’s why you’ve resonated with me?” Zac roared over the raging storm. “Then you need to help me out as well!”

The response was immediate. A deafening crack echoed through the cave as enormous fissures appeared throughout the storm chamber. Then, rivers of energy came cascading down, drowning the storm before crashing toward Zac. His eyes widened in a mix of anticipation and alarm.

It looked like he’d gotten more than what he’d bargained for.

27

REINCARNATIONS AND REBIRTHS

Rivers of energy poured down the walls of the storm chamber, their density far beyond anything Zac had seen since entering the Calamity. Yet, an almost deafening silence had replaced the roar of the storm. Zac could tell some mysterious concepts were influencing the rivers of attuned energies, preventing them from touching.

The hundreds of fissures and their streams joined and separated, following a set of unique truths. Together, the streams formed a simultaneously simple and complex Dao Braid, allowing incredible amounts of energy to pass through the narrow space of the storm chamber.

The braid itself was almost the opposite of Zac’s path and not of much use conceptually, but it made his life a lot easier. The explosions of these energy levels would have been deadly, and would have forced him to split his attention between the war in his mind and the war on the outside.

Zac felt the ground beneath shudder as two small cracks appeared almost right beneath the two vortices that had already begun feasting on the more malleable attuned energies. In contrast to the fissures above, these small slits exerted a weak pull. Zac understood what was going on, and he redirected the Creation and Oblivion Energy into the cracks—payment for the fuel coursing into him.

This was a trade Zac was more than willing to take. The energies trapped in his aperture came straight from the Remnants and were tainted by their undying will. Giving it up could be considered helping him rather than being an actual payment. The only problem was that using the energies came at a cost, even when just releasing it from his Soul Aperture.

Although, there was no rule saying he had to be the one paying the price.

An impossibly vibrant branch with four leaves rippling with Time and Life appeared in his hand, and the first leaf started to wilt as Zac extracted the longevity locked within. Similarly, Oblivion exacted a price of emotions and memories, yet Zac had prepared a spare for that.

This wasn’t a Longevity Treasure like the one his subordinates had found at an auction. It was the lingering pieces of Mossy’s consciousness he’d trapped and sealed. The last emerald motes winked out one after another as Oblivion claimed them for fuel.

Seeing that the process went smoothly, Zac could finally turn to the most important matter. The almost exhausted ambient energy in his Soul Aperture was already halfway replenished, and dense clouds of Life and Death battled for dominion over his soul.

The small nebulous swirls surrounding the two oversized Soul Cores had grown tens of times in size, each shuddering with power as they exerted pressure on the cores. Meanwhile, innumerable explosions went off every second in his mind, each exhausting some of the build-up while pressuring the Soul Cores.

Even without Zac controlling things, the cores had already shrunk 30% in size since the vortices had begun swallowing the liquified energy. Yet it wasn’t enough. Zac could tell his cores had started to harden. He had a few minutes at most, and the cores still needed to be concentrated to a tenth of their current size. Right now, they were far too porous and brittle.

Determination gleamed in Zac’s eyes as he took charge of his Evolutionary and Inexorable Cores. His path had always been a straightforward one, and his solution this time wasn’t any different. The cores hummed as they began to move with increasing velocity.

Right toward each other.

In their wake, two enormous shrouds of Life and Death followed, making up the bulk of the army. Meanwhile, the cores were the vanguard, each containing an insatiable desire for the extermination of the other side. Zac did nothing to quell these impulses—he did the opposite. The Dao Avatar of the Branch of the War Axe released torrential amounts of Dao into the approaching cores and their shrouds while the final stockpile of truth started pouring out from [Spiritual Void].

Life and Death, kindled by Conflict; a war as old as time itself. An earthshattering shockwave erupted in Zac’s Soul Aperture as two cores collided. A second, just as powerful explosion, followed a moment later as the spiral clouds of opposing elements were forced together. Zac’s vision swam, like his soul had been ripped in half as the two cores were flung back to the opposite edges of his aperture.

Blood poured down Zac’s nose and ears, and cracks covered the surface of the two cores. But it worked. The clash of the cores and the huge shockwave from the shrouds exploding condensed the two cores by almost 50%. Just as importantly, Conflict had been squeezed into them, moving them closer to his path.

The pain in Zac’s mind was almost enough to make him keel over, but he ignored the agony as he swallowed a handful of Soul Mending Pills. The exhausted spiral shrouds had been replenished just seconds later by the nigh-inexhaustible energies from above. Zac was full of reluctance, but he had no choice.

The two cores began moving again, their advance collecting all the energies in the aperture. Another set of shockwaves erupted when the cores clashed. This time, his consciousness slipped and he stabbed himself in the leg to regain clarity. The cores groaned in agony, but they’d shrunk another 20%.

One time after another, Life and Death rallied and fought for supremacy, with Zac’s mind as the battleground. The cores were no longer pure expressions of Life and Death. Now, they teemed with ferocity as Conflict integrated into their depths. Furthermore, their size was just 15% of before. The pressure had elevated them from rough coal into diamonds, their power far beyond his previous stage.

Such improvements came at a cost. Cracks covered every inch of their surfaces, deep scars that threatened to leave lasting damage. The same was true for his Soul Aperture, which was damaged to the point of leaking Mental Energy. He’d also run out of Creation and Oblivion Energy, and he could tell something was happening to the Calamity Mountain.

The mountain had been shaking over the past three minutes, the tremors growing deeper and more ominous by the second. The mysterious presence had also grown more distant, to the point Zac felt himself about to lose the connection altogether. He could tell the energies he’d provided had already been used up. For what, Zac had no idea, and he was running out of time.

“One more,” Zac growled with a hoarse voice, his vision red while his mouth tasted like metal.

He’d endured eight collisions, each putting him closer to his goal. Nine was the last and the ultimate—the final battle.

The two cores were forced into battle, becoming missiles on a collision course. They collided, and Zac desperately formed a huge net of Mental Energy around his aperture to minimize the damage. The cores were pushed back, but this time proved different from the previous clashes. Glittering dust was left in their wake, making them appear as comets drifting through space.

The tail was made from pieces of Zac’s soul, but there were also emerald splinters from the Moss Crystal and pieces infected with the lingering will of the Remnants. The cores had been condensed to such a point that some of the impurities had been forced out, such as the pieces of Mossy that he’d failed to integrate into the cores.

His soul was rapidly filled with energy from the vortices, and Zac reached out and crushed the gates leading to his mind. Two new spiral clouds formed, but Zac no longer needed to push the two sides together. Instead, the two cores commandeered one half each of his Soul Aperture, forming two vertical swirls.

The Evolutionary Core was surrounded by a deathly cloud, while the Inexorable Core was ensconced in Life. In the center of his aperture, his Dao Avatar sat in meditation, continuously releasing its Dao of Conflict into the clouds. Eventually, the deathly cloud would turn into an inexorable cloud, and so on.

The clouds slowly spun around the newly formed cores, constantly putting them under a small amount of pressure. These clouds would become the key to continuing through the [Nine Reincarnations Manual]. For now, they worked as protection. The pressure the clouds released wasn’t strong enough to damage the cores, but it helped keep them pressed together.

Zac swallowed a series of treasures meant for nurturing and healing souls, and a fresh wind swept through his soul. It was like outside and within had swapped positions. The storm chamber was rendered deathly silent since the streams of energy were released, the complete opposite of the raging war in his mind.

Now, the laws keeping the falling energies at bay were wearing thin, and explosions had resumed farther up the chute. Conversely, a fresh wind from the healing treasures swept through his mind, helping seal the tears in his aperture and cores. His soul finally found peace.

He’d done it. His Soul Aperture was a wreck, and the cores looked like they had been through years of fierce battles. But that was fine. The two cores were incredibly condensed, creating a powerful foundation to continue his cultivation. And while his soul was damaged, it wasn’t to the point he couldn’t use it at all. He should be fine if he didn’t draw more than 30% of their power. Using 30% of his Mental Energy with his two cores was far beyond what he could release during his previous reincarnation.

The explosions drew closer as the tremors grew more powerful. Almost like the whole mountain was about to collapse. Yet Zac sat in place, almost forgetting his fleshy body altogether. He was one with his powerful soul and felt it spread like a domain for hundreds of meters in every direction.

Boulders that should have smashed into him were nudged away, landing on the ground around him. Even the awakening storm avoided him, allowing him to gradually get used to his newfound power.

A pang of incredible danger pierced through the roar of the mountain. It interrupted his rebirth in the eye of the storm, like a discordant note in a beautiful orchestra. Zac still remained rooted in place, eyes closed, sensing a cultivator effortlessly pierce through the storm on his way to Zac’s exposed cave. The barriers had long since shattered, and the enemy was already upon him.

Zac only felt tranquility as he opened his eyes.

A pulse of pent-up pressure from his Soul Aperture was released through Zac’s gaze, and the hooded cultivator who’d targeted him lost all control over his body as an earring and a brand on his forehead snapped. His eyes glazed over like his soul had just left him. In a way, it had. It had been pushed out of place by the tremendous force Zac’s breakthrough generated.

“Bad luck,” Zac muttered as [Verun’s Bite] flashed, cutting off the reptilian’s head in one swift motion.

A surge of Kill Energy entered his body, confirming it wasn’t a puppet or something else that had been destroyed. Zac shook his head as he swiftly looted rings and everything else of interest on the man’s body before he stowed it away in his Corpse Sack. A second piece of high-potential material had delivered itself—doubly so since the assassin seemed to cultivate a Dao of Death without being undead. He would most likely make an amazing Revenant.

Zac had sensed this cultivator targeting him a while ago. Fate had been gathering toward him since he broke open the walls to release the floodgates. And when his soul spread through the area, he’d spotted the reptilian. Zac expected it to be a powerful Beast King, though, rather than another guest.

What he hadn’t anticipated was how powerful the accidental pulse he released was. He’d planned on stopping the man in place with mental pressure, seizing the momentum. But his soul had fractured, much like when Zac met the original owner of Vilari’s body. It was a shame such a powerful bust was a one-off thing and not something he could charge up.

But it gave him the idea to look for Mentalist skills, something for infighters in the vein of [True Strike] he’d owned for a while. It was a bit of a shame to cultivate such a powerful soul and not properly leverage it in battle. He even had two empty slots for skill fractals in his head, a result of both his sides being such one-track martial classes.

A huge rock tumbling down forced Zac to put planning aside. The stone itself wasn’t a big problem, even if it was too heavy for his newfound telekinesis. Rather, it felt like a harbinger of what was to come. Zac could tell the shakes were not just the result of new pathways being carved through the mountain.

The mountain was dying. Had he accidentally killed it? He’d infused quite a bit of Creation and Oblivion, but he didn’t believe that was enough to take out the spirit that had communicated with him. Especially considering how much it had desired those energies.

Then again, it was hard to argue with facts as Zac could sense the mountain was no longer climbing in altitude while the cracks in the storm chamber grew more serious. But suddenly, a weak message appeared in Zac’s mind before his connection to the mountain was thoroughly cut. A thank you and a goodbye.

Zac didn’t know exactly what was happening, but his eyes gleamed with greed as they turned to the top of the storm chamber. A moment later, a spiraled crystal reminiscent of the twinned World Core fell through the ceiling. It didn’t fall with the rest of the rubble but rather floated, showering the whole chamber in powerful truths of Life and Death.

This was a Supreme treasure, nurtured for eons in the heart of the mountain. A gift from the spirit as it was reborn.

Its emergence was like the lifeline of the mountain being cut, and Zac felt the spirituality of the mountain rapidly drain. Zac couldn’t be sure, but he doubted the mountain would still be flying in a week or two.

An unbelievably enraged roar rocked the mountain before a powerful presence swept the area. The mountain’s owner had woken up, and it wasn’t happy. Worse, it was clearly a Late-stage Beast King, only one level beneath the terrifying snake he’d met in the Twilight Chasm. It wasn’t something he could contend with.

Zac’s hair stood on end upon feeling the aura of the powerful Beast King, but he ignored the warning bells going off in his mind as he started climbing toward the treasure. He’d already been discovered, so he may as well get the prize before running for his life.

A croaking snicker echoed through the storm as the two looked down at the drifting mountain.

“Poor child,” Lova laughed. “Targeting a peer with such powerful Fate is bound to result in a cosmic hiccup if your own providence isn’t up to snuff.”

It was as though their gaze could pierce straight through the mountain, observing the young man within. His aura was unsteady after his brutish breakthrough, yet his eyes had unyielding determination as he braved the storms of energy, climbing toward the Mountain Heart floating above.

“What do you think, Esmeralda?” Lova smiled as she looked down at the small toad in her hand. “He’s an interesting one. No wonder Engo has been muttering to himself for over a month.”

The toad formed a few signs, its tongue flicking about.

“He’s a good person because his Dao tasted nice?” Lova laughed. “Well, his unique flavor did help your 403rd reincarnation save a bit of time from reaching maturity.”

Another enraged roar echoed through the area. The Dreambeast atop the mountain had awoken from its self-inflicted nightmare, and it was beyond infuriated to find the source of its dreams withered. It had already sent its tendrils through the mountain, and it was about to teleport to the heart.

Esmeralda grunted unhappily, and a wave of ancient aura shot toward the mountain peak. The Dreambeast froze in place, shuddering at the sudden presence that filled its domain. A moment later, it turned into a river of vibrant dreams, fleeing toward the upper layers of the Calamity. It even left the wilting [Soulhaze Lily] in its cave, afraid that bringing it away would anger this terrifying intruder.

“This one is fine, but no more,” Lova said. “Master does not like us meddling with the children’s fate.”

Esmeralda rolled her eyes, making a few signs while pointing toward the sky.

“You’d seal master if he’d get in the way?” Lova said with a helpless shake of her head. “Maybe if you were in your original form. But even then, you’d only manage to keep him contained for a few millennia. And what do a few years matter to someone like master?”

The toad snorted, pointedly looking away.

“Don’t be like that,” Lova said. “Who told you to go and eat that scary thing from the Time Nexus? Don’t forget, it’s only thanks to master and his old friend that you and your reincarnations haven’t been washed away by the Obverse River.”

The toad responded with a blithering stare before turning her gaze back to the mountain below. Cracks had spread across its whole surface, and huge chunks were breaking off, falling into the Void. A day at most.

“Well, it’s true that your unique situation has been helpful for our undertaking. Either case, some things can’t be avoided.” Lova smiled as she glanced at a screen that had appeared in front of her. “A global event. You can consider this an opportunity for your little friend to temper himself. I am curious to see how this will play out. There are an unusual number of decent seedlings in this batch. I guess we have the ascending pillar to thank for that.”

Lova nodded, agreeing with the sign-speaking toad’s response. “You’re right, it might be the other way around. The pillar is ascending because of the gathering Fate. The Heavens are rising. It won’t be long until another throne can be claimed.”

A tongue ripped through the air in a snatching motion, releasing a powerful aura that contained the echoes of the very beginning of the era.

“You?” Lova smiled. “You’ll first have to escape your curse of reincarnation. But I guess you have a plan, considering you’ve been sneaking about the past decades.”

Esmeralda pointed at the mountain, croaking in its ancient language.

“Use one Eternal Heritage to fight another?” Lova nodded. “I guessed as much. In your current state, you’re not strong enough to sneak inside. So you have to borrow the Fate of these children. Well, there are a few to pick from right now.”

Esmeralda snickered with excitement as she looked at the chaos erupting throughout the mountain. Half of the beasts ran toward the exits, their survival instincts overcoming their greed for the Mountain Heart. Others had abandoned all reason as they rushed toward the heart, where the young human was still braving the increasing waves toward the treasure.

Lova monitored the proceedings, but a weak fluctuation made her look over curiously. The spirit was weak and small and full of unstable energies. But it freely existed in a permanent form, even when cut from its source.

“A Mountain Spirit who dreams of the sky,” Lova smiled as she gently pointed at the spirit. “It goes against the natural order. Then again, so does all cultivation.”

A small azure rune appeared on her finger, which enlarged as it flew toward the spirit. It formed a gate leading to a vast azure expanse.

“Us meeting today can be considered fate. This place isn’t suitable for the next step of your journey. The endless skies on the other side of the portal are just as dangerous as this realm, but they hold the key to your desire.”

The small floating mountain flickered, turning into a faceless humanoid resembling the young man who had given it the energy needed for its transformation. It bowed then flew through the gate, not sparing its former body a single glance.

And as one gate closed, another opened.

“It looks like the children are already arriving,” Lova said, gaze shifting to the starter island far below. “This will become a bloody affair.”

28

CALAMITY CORE

It seemed like the weight of the whole Calamity Mountain bore down on Zac’s shoulders as he continued his climb. His arms strained from the pressure, and he would already have been thrown back to the bottom of the chute if not for the help of both Vivi and Alea.

He wasn’t sure if it was the treasure itself or the crack it fell out of that generated the overwhelming gravity domain, but nothing seemed to work against it. Even [Void Zone] only weakened it a bit, at the cost of excessive amounts of Void Energy. Thankfully, he was almost there, and not a moment too soon.

Zac could sense a powerful presence just through the wall with his spiritual domain. It was clearly here for the prize, but it couldn’t find a way through. Judging by the shudders, it had opted for the most straightforward solution—forcing its way through by taking advantage of the large cracks that spread through the mountain.

And it wasn’t the only one. Roars resonated from almost every pathway leading into the storm chamber.

Muscles bunched together as Zac climbed the last stretch. His body was screaming with hunger when faced with the incredible truths locked within the twinned crystal. The closer he got, the more obvious it was that this thing was far greater than some Attuned Crystals. It didn’t seem to contain much energy, but it more than made up for it in Dao.

Even inside the time-dilated environment of the Perennial Vastness, Zac could feel the winds of inspiration buffet him as he looked at the flickering lights within. This crystal held the condensed truths of Pure Life and Death, refined over eons in the Calamity. Its Daos weren’t at the level of the mote of Primal Dao he’d encountered inside the Twilight Chasm, but it was perhaps even more enticing.

Because this thing was almost perfectly aligned with his path. Not only that, it seemed to still absorb the truths of the surroundings, showing no indication of losing its efficacy. It was a stark contrast to the white light that couldn’t survive in the exposed environment, where Zac only managed to grasp onto a corner of its gift before it was gone.

The cracks spread on the wall as the shudders grew more frenzied, but Zac was already upon the treasure. He was showered the truth by the Calamity, and pure Dao burrowed into his body. His mind glazed over but he snapped back to reality. A large jade box appeared in his hand, and he threw in a couple of Cosmic Crystals with Life and Death-attunement for good measure.

The treasure was safely tucked away in his Spatial Ring a moment later.

Zac didn’t run away, gathering the lingering truths on a fractal leaf. The wall just beneath crumbled, and a golden insect with glistening mandibles crashed through. Its eyes focused on Zac, and the storm chamber filled with greed and killing intent.

Thousands of small scales stood up on its back before they shot toward Zac like a golden hailstorm. However, they were swallowed by two clouds, one containing the domineering radiance of Arcadia and the other the oppressive darkness of the Abyss. It was [Rapturous Divide], empowered by the incredible amounts of attuned energies in the storm chamber.

A golden viscous liquid poured through small holes in the thick chitinous shell of the ten-meter-ant. It formed a second layer of defense for the Beast King, but it was utterly incapable of dealing with Zac’s strike. A surge of energy filled Zac’s body as the ant’s head fell toward the bottom of the chute. Hundreds of more ants were in the tunnel, but they all fled upon seeing their queen die.

Zac channeled the Kill Energy into [Surging Vitality] while opening his Status Screen, sighing resignedly upon seeing the quest still there.

Mountain Heart (Global Event): Seize the [Calamity Core] formed in the heart of the Calamity Mountain. Reward: 5,000 Mana. (NOTE: Mission Considered complete upon leaving the Calamity.) (1/1)

He’d expected as much upon getting the mission, but it was still a headache. Zac had read about this very situation in Ventus’ book, [Perennial Transformations]. The strategy proposed by Ventus was to, through visiting various realms and gathering data, use numerology to estimate which realms would birth rare treasures and when.

That way, you would get a leg up on the competition, gaining riches and Mana in one swoop. If lucky, you could even get a quest before it became a global event. However, Ventus also mentioned one situation to look out for. When the treasure was too valuable, it’d immediately create a global event, with no chance of sneaking it out of the zone unnoticed.

And for the greatest treasures that were only occasionally formed in the Red Zones, the mission wouldn’t end even when he got his hands on the item.

It was a small difference, but one that drastically changed the fallout. For one, a persistent event meant the item was incredibly valuable. Secondly, the huge Mana bounty was still up for grabs. Five thousand Mana was half an echelon. Such a windfall was especially precious to the elites running against the clock.

It could give them the breathing room needed to form their core in peace or push them into a higher echelon that would allow them to activate the higher-tiered features a year early. Conversely, if the mission had ended, then most people would bow out, as the benefits didn’t match the risks.

Now, the exit was likely already guarded by powerful guests. Clearly, the System’s philosophy weighed heavier in the Red Zones, where struggle was just as important as exploring the Dao and forming new cores.

“You guys really are jerks,” Zac muttered as he dropped back down toward the tunnel he entered through.

“Well, this is a Red Zone,” Null giggled. “If the task ended the moment you got the treasure, who’d bother coming here to fight you for it? If you don’t want the hassle, you can just throw the Mountain Heart away.”

Zac shrugged. There was no way he’d discard the [Calamity Core], even if it meant clashing with high-echelon guests. He’d known it the moment he held the treasure. This thing easily surpassed any of his prepared items for his upcoming Core Formation.

Forming a Cosmic Core as a mortal heavily relied on treasures, but not any old item would do. Some attuned treasures weren’t suitable for Core Formation, while others had clashing spirituality or unsuitable insights. He had mountains of attuned items in his Spatial Ring, but most carried defects that would impact his breakthrough if not refined. But refinement also meant the item lost some of its efficacy.

The [Calamity Core] was different. It contained incredibly Pure Daos of Life and Death, completely unblemished by outside influences. Furthermore, the core was completely unsullied by any lingering spirituality. Zac didn’t know what happened to the Mountain Spirit, but it had fully severed its connection to the mountain and its core. It wouldn’t need any refinement and could be directly absorbed.

And as such, the Mountain Heart had become the perfect item to set up the foundation for his incredibly complex core. It was even a twin-attunement treasure. The fewer treasures he used to create the nucleus of his Cosmic Core, the greater the cohesion would be. With the [Calamity Core], he only needed to add a Supreme treasure with Pure Conflict, and he’d have all the pieces he needed.

This would drastically increase his chances of success and even improve his chances of forming a higher-quality Cosmic Core. A top-tier foundation would act as a stabilizer as he extracted the energies of lesser treasures and added them to his core. With the incredible difficulties he faced with his Void Core, he couldn’t give up on something like that. The treasure even came with a massive Mana bonus, so there was no way he’d throw it away.

Zac reached the tunnel, and he wasn’t very surprised that no powerful current of Death poured through the pathway anymore. The shakes were persistent and increased with ferocity. The outside energies were siphoned off long before reaching the heart of the mountain, if they were dragged into the mountain at all.

The tunnel turned to a blur as Zac rushed toward the surface with utmost urgency, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake. It was a mix of Karma, smell, and energy-purifying dust that would hopefully throw the beasts off his trail. But the raging beasts were the least of his worries, unless the source of that terrifying roar before returned.

The Calamity Mountain was a sinking ship with the spirit gone and the core extracted. He needed to get out before it leaked too much energy, or it’d become his tomb as it plunged into the depths. A high-pitched screech echoed out ahead, but the Pseudo Beast King didn’t get a chance to react before its head was split in two by a Dao-empowered swing of [Verun’s Bite].

Upgrading his soul had once more improved his control over Mental Energy, and forming his crude Dao Braids was effortless and instantaneous. Not only that, but the current layout of his soul allowed for faster extraction. In his current human form, he could easily draw exactly the energies he needed from his Evolutionary Soul Core.

It didn’t directly improve his combat strength, but that was mostly because he hadn’t yet investigated the limits of his spiritual control. He should be able to create better Dao Braids after forming a Three Fates Soul, perhaps even forming a simple Dao Array. The spiritual domain that he could naturally form was also a huge help.

It stretched hundreds of meters around him, even passing through the mountain walls with their strong energy-isolating properties. Better yet, it barely required any energy to run. It provided an additional sense that helped him scout the path ahead for dangers. And being a passive domain, Zac suspected only Mentalists would notice it, in contrast to domain skills that would give off clues from how it used Cosmic Energy.

Zac continued at breakneck speed, each step with [Earthstrider] moving him hundreds of meters through the tunnels. But soon, he opted to swap back to his undead form, using [Abyssal Phase] to squeeze through the cracks that had appeared all over. It saved him hours, but Zac was still worried. The situation grew increasingly dire, with whole tunnels collapsing.

More than one path had collapsed to the point not even his wraith form could squeeze through. And he could tell that the mountain had started to sink, though it was a gentle descent. And there were still miles and miles of tunnels he needed to push through before he reached the surface.

After the fiftieth attempt, a talisman hummed to life. Zac breathed out in relief and infused Miasma without hesitation. He was swallowed by aquamarine light a second later, displaced by the top-quality escape talisman. The dour tunnel was replaced by the glowing radiance of the thousand suns of the Calamity as he appeared a few thousand meters away from the crumbling mountain.

The two attuned suns had started to drift away, and boulders fell like rain from below. Zac was more certain now, seeing the mountain from above, that it had died. A hint of decay and mourning gripped the whole thing, and huge clouds of stockpiled energies leaked out from the thousands of tunnels.

A huge maw suddenly appeared right in front of him, but the jagged edge of [Gorehew] rebuffed the beast long enough for five putrefying chains to dig into the body of the winged salamander. The beast shrieked with pain as flesh sloughed off from its body, and it fell into the abyss a moment later.

The danger was averted, but the salamander was just one of innumerable beasts in the vicinity. The sky was filled with animals fleeing the mountain, forming a deadly beast tide. There were hundreds of Beast Kings and a thousand times that number of E-grade beasts who possessed the ability to fly. Many had already trained their gazes at Zac, but they quickly looked away when Zac released his murderous aura and Daos.

He’d already confirmed there was no Middle-stage Beast Kings in the tide. There was no sign of the leader of the mountain either. Its aura had disappeared just before he seized the [Calamity Core]. Zac almost wondered if it was connected to the mountain somehow, and died when the mountain did. Of course, it was also possible it left for the higher reaches of the Calamity after its home was destroyed.

That wasn’t an option for most of the remaining beasts. Huge upheavals would rock the lower layers of the storm for the coming months, possibly years.

As for Zac, he had no interest in staying on to see the fallout. The Beast Kings had better things to worry about than Zac, and he was in no mood to waste energy fighting a mountain’s worth of beasts. The glider had already appeared beneath his feet and he had it fly away from the tide, heading for the vast emptiness beneath.

As luck would have it, the starting island wasn’t that far away. He and the toad had essentially moved in a huge circle while moving toward the mountain, climbing a bit higher with every jump. Now, the exit was just two islands over and one layer down, so there was no need to go back the same way he came.

Thousands of beasts following in his wake made for the islands below. Though most seemed somewhat lost, just hovering around the crumbling mountain, perhaps hoping it would stabilize—a futile hope.

The air screamed around him as Zac followed Null’s guidance beam. Occasionally some agitated beast would succumb to its instincts and try to attack him, but they were swiftly turned into bloody warnings for the others to stay clear. The real danger was the environment itself. Jumping down wasn’t as dangerous as climbing higher, but the attuned winds grew stronger by the minute.

He was forced to put the glider away a few times and brave the winds with his body until he fell through a rough patch. Zac’s heart was beating like a drum all the while. He was essentially parachuting without a parachute inside a raging storm.

One hour later, Zac finally saw the edge of an island below. It wasn’t the starting continent, but it had to be a neighboring one.

Zac landed on the island’s edge, partly hidden among a vanguard of fleeing beasts. Deafening roars greeted him, and the bloody air was proof the great reshuffling of the Calamity’s limited real estate had already begun. Each island could only support so much life, far less than the massive mountain had housed. Zac didn’t join the mayhem, keeping a low profile as he ran toward the other side.

After some deliberation, Zac opted to stay in his Draugr form. There was a high risk of a rough battle waiting for him up ahead, and he didn’t want to expose his human side if not needed. In contrast, his Draugr persona already had a reputation as a top-tier expert thanks to the global message, which might make some people back down. After all, this was a Red Zone without any safety nets.

Even then, it only took half an hour before Zac felt a weak pang of danger as a bolt of nothingness shot toward him with incredible speed. It was launched from a dead angle, not creating so much as a ripple of energy. Zac could still sense it with his newfound domain, allowing him to adapt even faster than merely relying on his danger sense.

Zac dodged as layers of Death spread from his body, kicking up a storm in the environment that swallowed the forest around him. His spiritual domain was strong, but it didn’t have the reach of his Peak-mastery [Fields of Despair], which exposed two warriors—one hiding in the distance whereas the other was almost upon him, moving at breakneck speed.

The projectile passed him by with incredible momentum, punching a fist-sized hole straight through a nearby boulder. It had to have contained incredible force to destroy the hard rocks of the floating islands so effortlessly. Even Zac wouldn’t have had an easy time absorbing such a blow. But there was no time to worry about the hidden archer.

Four chains dripping with corrosion shot forward, forming a deadly prison as the jagged edge of [Gorehew] appeared. The skill hadn’t changed much since reaching Peak-mastery. It only built upon what it already had. The jagged edge was sharper, heavier, and could absorb blood far more efficiently in a protracted war.

Instilled with the branches of Pale Seal and War Axe, it carried terrifying weight as it cut toward the incoming warrior. However, Zac suddenly swirled around, cutting empty air as a chain impaled the hooded attacker. His swirl repositioned the chains, allowing them to slightly divert three more projectiles launched from the shadows. Zac growled with annoyance upon seeing cracks appear on the chains of [Love’s Bond].

The incoming warrior shattered like a broken mirror when [Love’s Bond] pierced him, and the real warrior appeared where Zac swung his axe. The jagged edge crashed into a refractive barrier. The shield was completely incapable of stopping Zac’s momentum, but the warrior was already gone by the time he’d cut through.

A scream in the back of his mind warned of danger, but there was no time. A huge conflagration swallowed Zac, but its force wasn’t enough to leave more than shallow wounds on his frame. The flames were cut apart with a swing of [Gorehew], and a stomp quenched them altogether. After looking around, Zac snorted and continued walking.

The two attackers were already gone after their ambush failed. He’d sensed the melee fighter teleporting to the edge of [Fields of Despair] when his defensive skill failed. Then he was gone before Zac could catch up, and the ranged fighter similarly chose to back away. Without using [Pillar of Desolation] or [Arbiter of the Abyss], there was no way to make the two assassins stay.

They clearly hadn’t gone all-out, only testing the waters to see if it was a worthwhile fight. Witnessing Zac’s strength, they chose to back down. Unfortunately, there was a very real chance the two were only scouts, and the real fighting force was somewhere close by. Zac was confident in his strength, but he didn’t like the idea of fighting a whole faction so soon after breaking through, with his soul still in a fragile state.

He was about to flash away with [Abyssal Phase], but a rumble made him pause and look up. A smile spread across Zac’s face as the sky darkened. He might be alone, but at least he had the environment on his side.

29

CALAMITY

A huge gust passed by overhead, leaving behind a curtain of explosions. Far off, a boulder the size of a skyscraper fell, piercing through the budding storm and enraging it all the more. The winds reached Zac soon enough, who pushed the chains of [Love’s Bond] into the ground to avoid getting swept away.

A deadly storm was descending on the region, this one an even mix of Life and Death. Explosions of both elements lit up the sky, and visibility worsened by the second. Last time, it had turned into a painful lesson about the dangers of the Red Zones, but Zac didn’t start looking for a cave to weather the storm.

He chose to keep moving. But just as Zac was about to resume his sprint for the other shore, he felt a surge in his body. The source wasn’t the gathering energies around him that had burrowed into his body. Rather, it was [Immutability of Eoz] that had woken up.

Its cleansing waves of darkness swept through him, forcing an illusory mark to the surface. It contained a weak hint of fire, and Zac’s eyes widened in surprise. He really couldn’t look down on the guests in this place. The ranged assassin had been powerful enough to damage Alea’s chains, and the melee fighter managed to leave a delayed tracking mark in the conflagration.

Zac hadn’t noticed a thing. He would have been in big trouble if not for his Hidden Node. Zac ran a thorough scan of himself and the chains, but it looked like that was it. Still, the experience filled him with greater urgency, and he risked his safety by activating [Abyssal Phase] despite the explosions around him.

Why leave a tracking mark if you weren’t planning to come back, most likely with backup? The theory the two before were scouts of a larger party just grew more likely, and Zac needed to get away. The surroundings turned to a blur as Zac became a stream shooting across the island’s surface. The agitated energies felt like knives cutting through his incorporeal form, and he soon couldn’t maintain the skill anymore.

He appeared in a secluded vale in a puff of Miasma, his body covered in shallow wounds. Zac didn’t do anything to deal with the lacerations. For one, they’d close soon enough thanks to his improved constitution. Secondly, his ichor worked just as well as his blood to quell the growing storm around him.

His movement skill was quick, but it couldn’t match up to the ferocity of the Calamity. Half a minute later, the storm had caught up, reducing visibility to almost zero. Screaming gales and constant eruptions drowned out all other sounds. At least it would be incredibly difficult for his pursuers to find him like this.

Even the constant roars of beasts fighting were gone. They knew well enough not to stay on the surface when faced with the wrath of the environment. Explosions in the atmosphere grew more frantic, and just moving became a chore. But as bad as Zac had it, the other guests probably had it worse.

The coalitions might have been able to prepare some measures against the environment if they had more time, but this was a time-sensitive event. There was only so much you could do in a few minutes. This was his chance. The further he could progress while the others were locked down, the fewer enemies he’d have to fight.

If lucky, a lot of people might leave the Calamity altogether upon seeing a Life-Death storm bear down on them.

A scream of danger made Zac look up, and he swore with alarm as he leapt out of the way, using the chains to ensure he wasn’t dragged off. A powerful gust ripped Zac’s anchor out of the ground and flung him into the sky, forcing him to take his wraith form again. Cascading waves of Life and Death ravaged his body, but Zac held on long enough to move a few hundred meters away.

His body was covered in far nastier wounds when he reformed, but he wasted no time as he activated [Profane Exponents] just in time to partly block out a tremendous shockwave. The coffin-wielding skeleton bore the brunt of the force, only surviving thanks to the latest addition to the skill.

Upon reaching Peak-mastery, a fourth skeleton was added, appearing as a hooded mage holding an ancient tome. It emitted dense plumes of Death and was the source of the large sigil beneath his feet. On its own, the sigil formed a second layer of defense, weakening any force entering it. The mage skeleton also had a second feature—empowerment.

Every time the skill was activated, Zac could have the mage strengthen one of the other three pygmy skeletons and their abilities. He urged the empowerment into the coffin-wielding defender, which increased the durability of its barrier by over 30%. A second barrier also sprung up around the sigil, a lesser mimicry of the coffin blocking out the shockwave.

The skill ultimately cracked, but only after exhausting most of the furious waves of Life and Death that had covered the area like a tsunami. Even the deadly haze was momentarily swept away, allowing Zac to see what had almost killed him.

A boulder hundreds of meters across had almost landed on his head just now, clearly a broken-off piece of the collapsing Calamity Mountain. Huge cracks spread across the ground, and an endless series of shudders indicated this deadly projectile wasn’t the only one.

Neither guests nor storms were the most pressing threat. Something must have changed with the Calamity Mountain for pieces this big to fall with such frequency. Each one was like a small extinction event. Even if he could avoid getting crushed, how long could the island survive?

A chain shot forward, latching onto a cliff jutting out from the ground while Vivi’s vines did the same. But rather than carefully dragging himself forward, Zac used them as safety lines as he ran for his life.

With the winds trying to rip him away, Zac brought out a thick block from his ring, griping it in his arms.

It was a piece of D-grade metal called [Nightblight Alloy], which he’d gotten from the Undead Empire. After Alea swallowed the incredibly heavy alloy he looted from the Twilight Ocean Realm Spirit’s treasury, Zac continued looking for suitable materials for her evolution to D-grade. This alloy weighed as much as a small mountain, preventing Zac from being easily dragged away by the Dao-empowered winds.

It even served as a shield, as a small piece of rock appeared through the storm, flying toward him with such speed Zac didn’t even get the chance to react. A loud clang boomed and Zac was flung ten meters back, feeling like someone had punched him in the gut. At least it beat getting eviscerated. Zac looked down at the depression in the metal block with trepidation.

Still, errant shrapnel wasn’t enough for Zac to relent. He got back on his feet and kept running. The sky darkened farther ahead, forcing Zac to hunker down and activate his defensive skill again.

Zac’s senses were strained to the limits as he scanned for threats in every direction. Occasionally he stumbled into fearful beasts desperately searching for safe harbor. They weren’t in the mood to fight with random a passerby, except for a tiger who thought Zac blocked a nearby cave.

Suddenly, Zac sensed something different in the cloud—two cultivators. They were humans, one who almost possessed Billy’s heft, while the other had a thin sword slung across her back. They’d created some sort of wind tunnel, moving with impressive speed. Shimmering Mana Barriers also surrounded both, proof they’d reached the third echelon. Only those who had at least 30,000 Mana could turn on and off their Mana Barriers at will inside Red Zones.

Still, many opted not to use them, including the man he slew inside the Calamity Mountain and the scouts from before. It wasn’t overconfidence, though. Because of reptilian’s choice, Zac’s own Mana Barrier wouldn’t activate when they tried to launch a sneak attack. This was a small advantage higher-echelon guests had over new arrivals, and an important reason most people avoided Red Zone the first years.

Veterans could fight you while blocking the protection provided by the Perennial Vastness. And they could turn on their shield the moment they started to get disadvantaged. Of course, the barriers were weaker in a Red Zone compared to Vastness City, but it could still mean the difference between life and death.

As for the two cultivators, they used their barriers to slightly weaken the storm in their immediate vicinity. Still, its efficacy was limited, far worse than Zac’s ichor. They were forced to also use treasures to stave off the winds, yet both were covered in bloody gashes.

The two disappeared just seconds after Zac sensed them with his spiritual domain. A pang of danger warned him, and a coffin appeared behind his back. The whole coffin was swallowed by a huge burning dragon that had emerged from the fist of the bulky man, but Zac blasted it apart with a swing of his axe.

The trusty coffin of [Profane Exponents] appeared to block a sword strike from the opposite direction, but Zac was shocked to find the thin rapier create a small hole in the skill and pierce through. Pain bloomed in his side as Zac narrowly avoided having his heart punctured, and a deep gash had been carved into the metal block he carried. Thankfully, no follow-up came because he managed to force the sword mistress to retreat with a set of corrosive chains.

That strike hurt like hell, but Zac ignored her as he advanced on the pugilist, quickly storing the [Nightblight Alloy] while attaching one of his chains to the ground. His muscles strained as he swung [Black Death] with all the force he could muster. The man’s fist lit up like a sun as he opted to fight fire with fire and strike right at the incoming axe. Unfortunately for him, he’d severely underestimated his opponent’s strength.

Deathly axe met burning brass knuckles, and the burning conflagration was cut apart as Zac’s edge dug into his flesh. Two Dao Branches empowered the man’s strikes, but only one seemed to be at Middle-stage. Conversely, Zac worked with two Middle Dao Branches bolstered by [Spiritual Void], and he held a clear attribute superiority.

The pugilist activated his Mana Barrier upon seeing himself lose, and Zac actually found his arm pushed back. He reacted instantaneously and bore a second stab from the sword mistress to unleash a ruthless kick right at what he prayed was a weak spot in the barrier. The pugilist effortlessly blocked even if he’d just lost two fingers, but a kick by Zac wasn’t so easily neutralized.

Muscles snapped, and bones groaned in Zac’s legs as he pushed [Conviction of Eoz] far beyond the safe levels, boosting his strength by over 20%. The monstrous force blasted the pugilist away like he was launched from a cannon.

Normally, that wouldn’t have been a big deal, but they were currently in the middle of a storm. Zac sensed the man get swept away by a wind, and he was dragged out of Zac’s domain a moment later.

“Pato!” the woman screamed, disappearing in a flash after leveling a deadly stare at Zac.

Zac snorted and picked up one of the severed fingers—the one with a Spatial Ring still attached. The two thought him an easy mark to make some money in the middle of the storm. There was no pity in Zac’s heart for people like them. He would have killed them both if not for wanting to save his aces for the real opponents lurking in the area.

He hadn’t gained any Kill Energy from the clash, but Zac knew the man was in trouble. Even if he managed to retain his consciousness, he’d been flung directly into the storm. Zac had been in that exact situation right upon entering the Calamity three days ago and understood firsthand just how deadly that situation was. Zac had even infused the man with a good chunk of his Dao of Conflict to turn him into a lightning rod for the environment.

The pugilist would be lucky if he survived long enough to find land through the chaos, and that wasn’t counting the numerous boulders and smaller shrapnel-like rubble mixed into the storm.

Thirty minutes passed, and the chaos just grew worse. Zac didn’t need to bleed himself to create a field of protection. If anything, he was forced to keep up field repairs of his battered body to avoid bleeding out. There’d been a dozen near-death encounters, mostly from shrapnel with nigh-undodgeable speed. The block of metal he used to anchor himself had already been turned into Swiss cheese by the unrelenting barrage, and he would have been grievously wounded if not for his Void Energy and [Abyssal Phase].

He wasn’t the only one facing hardships. Finally, the island couldn’t take it anymore. A deep groan reached the very core of Zac’s body before a huge crack appeared just one hundred meters away from him. The whole island had been split apart, and Zac desperately leaped to the other side upon realizing his half had started falling toward the abyss.

Zac was exhausted, but there wasn’t much to do but swallow a Soldier Pill and forge on. At least it shouldn’t be that long before he reached the end of the island. Even inside the storm, he’d kept a decent pace, and the guidance beam indicated he was getting close to the teleporter.

Another peak came crashing from the sky, forcing Zac to call upon his skeletal guardians again. The shockwave passed, but Zac looked up with shock as he saw his hands turned into corkscrews. In a similarly surreal fashion, a nearby boulder sprouted wings and flew away, singing a song of liberation.

Zac shook his head, and both hands and boulder returned to normal. He looked at the fallen peak with surprise. It hadn’t been Creation Energy that twisted its surroundings. There had rather been a powerful spiritual fluctuation baked into the shockwave just now. It had even managed to overwhelm his incredible mental protection, putting him in a dreamlike state.

Even now, a powerful spiritual fluctuation emanated from the peak, and the source wasn’t a skill. Rather, it seemed like there was an incredible Soul-attuned treasure in that piece of debris, which was further proven by the gathering of Fate around it. Zac hesitated, then ran toward the miniature mountain.

The situation was dire, but his soul all at once felt like an arid desert. Whatever hid within that mountain was the rain needed to make him whole. Its fluctuations weren’t quite at the level of the [Calamity Core], but it had to be one of the best Natural Treasures in this deathtrap.

A few jumps later, Zac stood inside a huge cave, and his heart shuddered at the lingering aura. It was incredibly condensed, still releasing mental ripples that almost scattered Zac’s thoughts. More importantly, it was an aura Zac recognized. It was the Late-stage Beast King that had scanned him after breaking through.

This had to be its den, which meant the small flower in the shimmering pond was one of its cultivation treasures. It looked a bit worse from the wear after having been thrown from the sky, and most of its pond was gone. But it still exuded incredible waves of Spiritual Energy, and Zac had to activate both a soul-warding talisman and [Indomitable] to withstand its aura.

Zac didn’t believe this was a hallucinogenic plant. It was most likely a side effect of the powerful spiritual fluctuations it emitted. Going by the hunger in Zac’s body, it was most likely an incredible tonic for his soul, something he could use after his recent breakthrough. Half a day had passed since he broke through, and he’d only managed to repair some of the damage caused by his brutish breakthrough.

He could only eat so many Soul Mending Pills before they lost their efficacy, but this could be the key to rapidly recovering to an optimal state. Zac braved the mental fluctuations and harvested the flower. He put it inside a jade box and added a number of Soul Crystals along with some pond water upon seeing the flower lose its spirituality. Even then, Zac judged it wouldn’t retain its effects for more than an hour or two before it was relegated to a normal Peak-quality item.

Zac was about to put the box away, but a deep voice boomed through the chamber.

“So, someone beat us to the punch.”

Zac swirled around and almost felt his vision had been inverted for a moment. He was standing inside a small mountain looking upon a sturdy man, yet it felt like the man was the mountain while Zac stood on the ground. He had an immense aura, towering yet calm like an ancient peak. Even the storm was pushed away from the cave mouth by his presence, though Zac guessed that was a result of his huge accumulation of Mana.

Null wouldn’t divulge the levels of guests in Red Zones, but Zac estimated this this cultivator was at least a proper seventh-echelon guest.

Even the three companions to his sides were no slouches. Each emitted an aura rivaling those of the strongest warriors he’d dueled in Vastness City. Zac inwardly sighed and cursed his greed. He wanted to avoid trouble, but a moment of weakness led him straight into a viper’s nest.

It only took one look to know there was no talking his way out of this one.

30

GREED

The group of four made no move to attack, and the two sides wordlessly looked at each other.

“You are the Draugr who has been making waves over the past month.” The leader of the new arrivals smiled, his eyes turning to the box in Zac’s hand. “That thing…”

“Is mine,” Zac cut him off.

“Ownership is dependent on strength,” one of the mountain man’s companions said, and Zac’s eyes narrowed upon sensing powerful spiritual fluctuations emanating from him.

A Mentalist. No wonder the group had hurried over.

“The [Soulhaze Lily] is of great use to my friend here, as you’ve no doubt guessed already,” the mountain man said. “How about this? Two factions guard the trial’s exit, along with the solo adventurers who have formed a temporary coalition. A lone cultivator returning, such as yourself, is bound to be robbed of their Spatial Rings the moment you’re sensed. If you donate the lily and allow me to scan your Spatial Tools for the [Calamity Core], I will personally lead you out of this place. I swear on my Dao, I will not take anything else.”

“Or maybe I just join the solo adventurers,” Zac shrugged.

“Don’t try to play us for a fool,” the lone woman in the group, a warrior wielding two identical shortswords, laughed. “Every arrival since the global event began has been logged. We know you’re not one of them. What group would let you join without checking you for the core?”

“And therefore, I must have the item?” Zac countered. “It’s might still be out there, probably in one of these falling mountains.”

He wasn’t really hoping to sway the group with his words, but these people were giving out critical information left and right. Why stop talking before he absolutely had to? He’d guessed these four were slightly sheltered elites of some powerful faction in the Multiverse from their appearance, and their demeanor and language only reinforced that theory.

Of course, that didn’t mean these people were weak. They might be lacking in life-and-death experiences compared to someone like himself, but the same could be said to be true for Iz Tayn.

“That might be the case, and you’re surely not the only one who was tempering themselves in this realm when the mission was released,” the leader said, a small frown forming when faced with Zac’s stubbornness. “You may be an innocent bystander in all this. But the Heavens are never fair. The others will not be as generous as I am. I’m certain the coffin on your back is your main weapon. Why risk losing your companion for a treasure that doesn’t seem aligned with your path?”

Zac hadn’t been too bothered by the situation before. These people were powerful, but he was confident in forcing his way out. It was the not-so-subtle threat to Alea that ignited a fire in his chest, and his plans started to shift. These people were asking for a beating, high-echelon or not.

“The young lord is giving you an opportunity here,” the Mentalist said, adding gas to the fire. “Don’t lose everything because of your greed.”

“You talk about greed while eyeing my stuff? While you threaten my coffin?” Zac said with a steely voice as roiling waves of killing intent poured out of his body.

The lingering mental imprint in the walls was doused and overwhelmed by Zac’s murderous air, and the whole mountain started shaking as Zac no longer restrained his aura. It rose and rose, a storm to match the one raging outside. Even the Mana-empowered domain exuded by the leader was pushed back, and his smiling visage finally changed to one of concentration.

“What gives you the confidence?” Zac growled as the rattling of chains started reverberating through the cave. “Your backing? Your Mana? This is what I think of your offer.”

Zac didn’t move to attack. The box in his hands floated into the air, allowing Zac to open it while still holding his axe. Powerful waves of spirituality blended with his killing intent, and Zac pushed down the scenes of carnage that had appeared as he grabbed the lily.

“What are you—STOP!” the leader roared, but Zac ignored the man.

The Mentalist had even fewer misgivings, launching an invisible arrow of empowered Mental Energy at Zac. It moved with incredible speed, but Zac didn’t even spare it a glance as he stuffed the flower into his mouth and swallowed. The arrow moved fast, but the chains had formed a nigh-impenetrable web around him. Two Dao-empowered chains lashed the mental attack, each drastically weakening it before it entered his Soul Aperture.

Zac didn’t even need to rely on [Indomitable] for protection. The two huge soul spirals were like millstones, pulverizing the attack long before it could cause any damage. Zac barely registered the attack, too swept up in his own world. It was like time had ground to a halt, similar to when he absorbed a new Remnant.

The real reason was because his mind had kicked into overdrive, with hundreds of thoughts firing off in a fraction of a second. In comparison, reality felt extremely slow. The source was the mysterious lily and the almost unfathomable amount of energy it unloaded.

No longer was his Soul Aperture a vast space with two opposing galaxies slowly spinning. His Soul Cores were still there, but they were drowned by millions of different images—nightmares clamoring for attention and Mental Energy. Zac could understand the shock on the Earth cultivator’s face seeing the chaos he’d invited into himself. Almost any cultivator would quickly lose their mind from the onslaught unless their souls were overloaded and collapsed from all the energy first.

However, Zac was no ordinary cultivator. Even in an unstable post-breakthrough state, his soul could match that of elite Peak E-grade Mentalists. Add to that his Heart Cultivation and experience with the Remnants, and he could hold onto his sanity without much effort, even if he temporarily couldn’t stop the odd distortions of reality around him.

His three Dao Avatars lit up, and the galaxies in his mind spun faster. The dreams that got too close were swallowed up and refined into a soothing mist that nurtured his harried cores and aperture. Scars were closing rapidly while the exhausted [Spiritual Void] was replenished. Even his vision started to return to normal.

But the [Soulhaze Lily] was no common object. It was clearly a D-grade treasure, even if it had lost a good chunk of its spirituality when it came crashing down from the Calamity Mountain. Not even Zac’s appetite was a match to what was offered. [Spiritual Void] absorbed all it could, and [Void Heart] soon joined in on the feast.

Even then, Zac was forced to continuously release more than 80% of the lily’s stockpiled energies through his pores, creating a shimmering shroud around him. Only then did his overdrawn mind settle somewhat. Zac felt like someone had pressed play on reality again as his perception of time returned to normal.

“Seize him! He might really have the core, but he’s out of his mind! He can’t be allowed to destroy that thing as well!” the leader swore, and four powerful auras spread out.

Zac only snorted as one domain after another was activated. The shimmering haze of mind-bending madness was joined by the Miasmic mist of [Fields of Despair] and the corrosive darkness of [Deathmark]. And even that wasn’t the end. The whole cave shook as a deathly river lined its walls and transformed their surroundings, as though they’d been dragged into the underworld.

A pillar radiating despair and finality rose from the ground, and thousands of anguished faces voicelessly screamed with desolation. Space itself bent and expanded to accommodate the hundred meter tall pillar. A wave of hollowness swept through his mind as the last embers of Oblivion Energy were used for kindling the beacon of Oblivion atop [Pillar of Desolation].

It didn’t matter. After using almost all of it in his breakthrough, he had far too little remaining to create an Annihilation Sphere. Using what was left to activate his most powerful skill was a worthy investment. The orb of ultimate darkness ignited. Its size hadn’t increased since Zac managed to push the skill to Late Mastery, but it had gained a halo of despair.

The halo spread millions of invisible tendrils through the cage, annihilating all clashing energies it encountered. Zac himself faded, his presence erased within the cloak of destruction rippling out from the tower. And as soon as the pillar formed, one chain after another shot out while expressions of hunger appeared on the pillar’s statues.

A battle was inevitable, and Zac had opted for shock and awe. However, these people weren’t some random grunts. Not one showed any fear, though their lazy and confident expressions were long since wiped away. One by one, their auras erupted, creating a counterweight to Zac’s interlaced domains.

Interestingly, each aura had an earthy tone that matched the leader’s. Even the Mentalist had an Earth-based Dao Branch. Zac expected to see complementing elements from the Peak of Grand Materia, but they were a specialized squad. It became increasingly apparent why these people wanted the Mountain Heart, even if it was attuned to Life and Death.

The leader of the four had the greatest aura, and Zac wasn’t surprised to sense it was a match to Uona’s in raw force alone. Bolstered by his seventh-echelon Mana, a zone bereft of Life and Death had formed within ten meters. The fundamental laws had subtly shifted in his vicinity. Only the Daos sanctioned by his path would function properly; everything else would be suppressed.

It was like a weaker version of his [Void Zone], but that wasn’t enough to make Zac back down. So what if the enemies had some advantages in that regard? He wasn’t the same person who fought Uona all those years ago, and the vast amounts of Pure Death in the Calamity gave him a home-field advantage.

Even now, large amounts of Death-attuned Energy were entering the cave to join [Pillar of Desolation]’s deathly river. Some Life entered as well, but the cave acted as a filter.

“Azra formation!” the leader shouted as four axe-wielding wraiths were crushed by his aura alone.

A huge mountain appeared above his head, its height a match to [Pillar of Desolation]. It fused with the Mana domain, creating a safe haven from Zac’s overlapping skills. Simultaneously, he felt an incredible pressure on his cage. The floating mountain had created a resonance with the mountain they stood inside, and the cave suddenly felt like a maw that tried to close and crush his skill.

Thankfully, the effect wasn’t strong enough to overpower his skill. It had contained powerful creatures like the Qriz’Ul Goblin King, and Zac had elevated the skill to Late Proficiency since. It would take well over a minute before the pressure exhausted and destabilized [Pillar of Desolation], and he could afford the energy expenditure.

That wasn’t the extent of the mountain’s effect, though. The four chains aimed to bind and drag Zac’s enemies into Oblivion were stopped by an ancient aura of permanence. Out of better options, they slammed into the mountain itself like poisonous needles delivering a deadly payload of nothingness. The old chains of [Profane Seal] could drain victims of their energy, and the chains of [Pillar of Desolation] had inherited that feature. With the skill reaching Late Proficiency, it simultaneously destroyed the energy it couldn’t siphon off, using the halo of Oblivion.

Apart from profaning the mountain avatar with its aura of Oblivion, the statues started to pull. Zac felt an incredible resistance, but the huge mountain shuddered, dragged a few meters closer. Nothing could resist the pull of Death—it was akin to fighting fate. But the scene only lasted for a second.

The Mentalist sat next to the leader and formed a mudra with his hands. A pillar of deep brown energy rose from him and poured into the mountain peak. He had become a conduit and amplifier. The mountain was no longer just an avatar but a representation of the will of the whole island they stood on. Like a primordial consciousness was slowly stirring. The destroyed energy of the mountain was rapidly being replenished, undoing the work of [Pillar of Desolation].

Zac could tell dealing with the mountain was key to winning the battle. The leader appeared to be pouring all he had into it, and the others were supporting him in hastening its awakening. While it couldn’t compare to the supreme power of [Pillar of Desolation], its aura was still rising.

He needed to make his move, but a pang of danger forced him to phase to move out of the way. A storm of stone shards had appeared where he stood and ripped space apart. Zac didn’t even have time to readjust before he felt his mind slow down, this time not because of the [Soulhaze Lily].

It was as though a mountain weighed down on his soul, slowing his thoughts to a crawl. The sensation only lasted a fraction of a second before it was ripped apart by [Indomitable] and his spinning Soul Cores, and Zac heard a groan from the Mentalist. Zac didn’t get the chance to capitalize on the backlash as his danger sense warned him of imminent peril.

The sword-wielder appeared right next to him, her aura fully obscured. Zac had no time to worry about how they could spot him through the obscuration of [Pillar of Desolation], and he frankly didn’t care. One of his enemies had dared leave the protective umbrella of the floating mountain, making this an excellent opportunity.

A small copy of the spirit mountain floated above her head, and Zac saw how energy streams entered her swords as she swung them in a cruel cross aimed at Zac’s head. This strike was not something that could be blocked with his chains, so Zac swung [Black Death] to intercept. Meanwhile, the rattling chains of [Love’s Bond] began their constrictive dance.

A tremendous shockwave erupted as weapons clashed. The warrior was forced back almost ten meters, while the now-exposed form of Zac only took one step back. The warrior looked at Zac with shock, unable to compute that she’d lost in a clash of pure Strength. Zac’s face was impassive as he advanced, but there was some surprise in his heart.

He’d only narrowly overpowered the enemy in a direct collision, even when using [Conviction of Eoz]. Judging by the woman’s aura, it wasn’t because of her own accomplishments but rather the small mountain above her head. It could be considered a War Array that allowed her to borrow the strength of a mountain and the leader.

But the real surprise was something else. Zac failed to catch the swordmaster with his chains, even when using the Inexorable Stance. Alea’s chains had aimed to seal her movements, while [Pillar of Desolation] sent out another chain. However, they’d all flown toward the huge mountain. It was similar to his old taunting ability, yet slightly different.

Zac’s senses told him that the sword mistress was the mountain and that attacking her and the mountain was the same thing. The culprit was most likely the miniature mountain hovering above her head, though knowing that didn’t provide an immediate solution. It was like reality had been subverted.

A thunderous crash followed in the wake of the opening exchange, and Zac blanched when his connection with [Pillar of Desolation] shuddered. Dozens of earth spears had split off from the mountain and slammed into the underworld river just as Zac was attacked. The leader had made his move, aimed at the cage rather than Zac or the pillar.

Huge cracks spread through the river of the underworld, where one salvo had damaged the seal of his Supreme Pathbound skill by over 15%. The damage would soon be dispersed through the whole river, but it was proof he couldn’t underestimate the geniuses of the Perennial Vastness. Sensing the damage and the still-building energy in the mountain proved the fight wouldn’t last long.

A swirling halo of darkness appeared behind Zac as he grew three meters in a burst. The thick chain of [Arbiter of the Abyss] barely had time to wound itself around Zac’s left arm before he reached out and clenched his hand. A tremendous pull kicked the whole area into a frenzy, and even the huge mountain still resisting his pillar was wrenched over a dozen meters closer.

It was like Zac had become a black hole, and the sword mistress was absolutely incapable of resisting the pull. She disappeared in a burst of instantaneous movement, but the Peak-mastery taunting skill wasn’t so easily avoided. In fact, the sword mistress was playing right into Zac’s hands.

She appeared just four meters away with a bewildered expression. A veteran warrior, she gained her bearings quickly and started channeling a skill as her swords pointed toward Zac’s heart. Before she could launch her attack, the surroundings dimmed. Confusion and fear replaced her bewilderment, and fear turned into horror.

Zac had already made his move, and the arbiter’s chain shot forth like a snake striking its victim.

“Galvo!” the leader roared from beneath the mountain, and the mountain slightly dimmed as a huge earthen blade sprung up between Zac and the sword mistress.

The blade contained incredible force. [Void Zone] was deactivated, but Zac suspected it would still have managed to force its way through. The blade severed one chain of [Love’s Bond] and the conjured fetter of [Arbiter of the Abyss], forming an impregnable wall separating Zac and his target. If Zac hadn’t retracted his arm in time, he would probably have also lost it.

The quick reaction allowed the warrior to scramble out of the way, but it was too late. [Void Zone] had interrupted the miniature mountain and its redirection ability. She’d then been tapped by the arbiter’s chain, which meant her fate was Zac’s to judge. Five whistling sounds cut through the roar of the deathly river.

“No!” the Mentalist screamed.

The sword mistress managed to block four out of five executions of [Blighted Cut] with her swords and defensive talismans, but the final one struck true. Zac emerged around the earthen divider just in time to see the woman’s corpse fall apart from left shoulder to right hip. Zac only spared her a glance before his abyssal eyes turned to the remaining cultivators.

The fear and confusion on the sword mistress’s face during her final moments were now mirrored on the others. They clearly didn’t understand what just happened, why their mountain War Array had failed. Furthermore, less than five seconds had passed since the fight started, yet one of their companions had already fallen.

They’d considered Zac a powerful opponent from the moment he unleashed his [Pillar of Desolation], but the severity of the situation had only dawned on them at this moment. They wanted to sound Zac out while they dealt with his cage, but that wishy-washy strategy had completely backfired on them.

This wasn’t a family trial where their background meant something. This was the lawless wild, and they’d targeted someone they shouldn’t have.

“One down, three to go.”

31

LIGHT OF AZRA

‘What do we do? WHAT DO WE DO?’ Kalva’s frantic voice rattled in Uthar’s mind. ‘This guy is too dangerous.’

Uthar’s face was calm, but his heart drummed as he looked on as the severed link of the insane Draugr’s coffin floated into the man’s hand. Uthar knew far too little about these undead creatures and their means. Only that the Draugr was one of the leaders of the distant Undead Empire. And so what? They were the scions of an equally powerful faction, with both numbers and Mana on their side.

To think they’d sent an Eonic Seed to the Perennial Vastness. Didn’t they have any core inheritances of their own?

Was there a way out of this mess? Losing Galvo was a hit to his prestige, but it didn’t matter much. Uthar was already approaching his limits before the Mana Poison would prove too much, so his retainers weren’t of much use anymore. This was supposed to be a final outing. If he managed to seize the [Calamity Core], he’d enter the eighth echelon and could turn his attention to Core Formation. There was no irredeemable grudge between the two.

Uthar tried to glean anything from the man, but he got a sinking feeling as he saw the Draugr’s attention shift from the severed chain he held to their location. His face was hidden within a hood since he transformed into that ominous form, yet Uthar could feel them. Those two abyssal orbs were trained at them, filled with monstrous killing intent.

What was with this lunatic? His demeanor had completely shifted when his coffin was mentioned, and now it looked like he was ready to fight to the death. Was that guy actually carrying around a beloved corpse inside it or something? In either case, diplomacy was out the window. Some treasures to smooth things over wouldn’t work.

‘I’ve tried; I can’t do anything to him,’ Pa’Sur sighed. ‘His soul might even be more powerful than mine. No wonder he could withstand the [Soulhaze Lily]’s dreams.’

‘Don’t waste your energy on him, then. Focus on awakening Azra’s spirit while providing support. It’s already reached a point where we can’t back down even if we want to. We’re trapped, so we’ll have to fight our way out,’ Uthrar intoned through [Stonewhisper] as he destroyed the wave of wraiths that had appeared again.

Even then, two more marks had been added to the mountain, and the corrosive blight spread deeper into the veins. He’d have to waste even more energy to push it out, or the avatar would collapse. These things were a constant bother, preventing him from properly dealing with the river of Death.

How was this just one man with one set of skills? It felt like they were fighting an army.

Uthar didn’t have a lot of options, and could no longer play it safe. Just breaking the river wasn’t enough, even if he found the opportunity while calling down Azra’s spirit to this plane. A deadly storm raged outside, one too powerful to overcome with Mana and far more in tune with their opponent than them.

The Draugr had clearly been able to traverse the island alone without accruing any damage, while they had been forced to hide beneath the ground while waiting for targets and treasures. Here, they were at least inside a mountain, evening the playing field. And if they fled, they’d have to give up on their half-summoned Deity, putting them in an even more dangerous situation.

This man was lethal to the extreme, and any half-measures would only end with more of his followers down for the count. Even worse, he could get crippled to the point his breakthrough failed. Uthar gritted his teeth and took out the [Dawn Sierra], waves of hatred burning in his heart as he looked at the dense engravings covering the stone chest.

He’d saved it to purify his Mountain Core after passing the first threshold, but their strength alone wasn’t enough. He needed assistance. Kalva breathed in relief upon seeing the legacy treasure they’d brought with them from back home. A true splinter of Azra imbued with its ancient will. Kalva clearly didn’t care that this meant his Mountain Core would reach Middle-quality at most.

Then again, neither did Uthar at this moment.

‘We need to delay him for twenty seconds. That’s it. After that, we’ll show him the might of Azra,’ Uthar growled. ‘Ridgebane Seeds!’

The two nodded, and thousands of pebbles spilled out of Kalva’s sleeves. As they flew toward the malignant star, they started to grow under the light of Azra. Uthar felt the drain of Faith Power from the avatar, but it rapidly recovered and was even bolstered as he pushed the [Dawn Sierra] into the mountain.

Powerful mental fluctuations were simultaneously released by Pa’Sur, indicating he was imparting the stone soldiers with temporary life. Thousands of golems filled the cave in no time, empowered by Azra and their Dao. Kalva’s eyes were closed in concentration—controlling this many elite stonemen was taxing, even when imbued with Divine Will and a spark of sapience from the Mentalist.

One spectral wraith after another appeared to meet the challenge, and a vast web of chains shot out from that ghastly pillar. That was exactly what Uthar wanted to see. That monstrous Draugr was ultimately just one man, and he’d already used up a huge amount of Miasma to maintain his advantage.

It also gave Uthar a breather, allowing him to redirect some of Azra’s force. Huge spears filled with force assaulted the raging river, purifying it with the breath of the earth. But Uthar was eventually forced to stop and refocus on Azra. Though a few of his projectiles had managed to pierce the river, it healed itself far too quickly for Uthar to dare attempt an escape. Just how durable was this cursed thing?

‘They’re ready,’ Kalva intoned as two shimmering stones appeared from his sleeves.

Uthar bit his finger and left three drops of blood on each stone before they flew out, Anointing them with the lineage of the Sentinel Dawn. The stones grew into two, ten-meter constructs, each radiating force equivalent to Early Hegemony.

By that point, the Draugr was on the move. He’d finished mending the broken link, which had retreated into the coffin on his back. Now, he’d turned into a storm of carnage, unleashing his anger on the Ridgebane soldiers. A huge, jagged edge swept through the constructs as he paved a path toward their position. He was no longer waiting around for them to emerge from their protective umbrella.

Stone shavings were flowing everywhere as hundreds of sacrificial soldiers collapsed, but that was part of the plan. The broken stonemen turned into a swirling storm, trapping the Draugr and forming the Ridgebane Array. The two anointed stonemen stepped inside, acting as foundations for the trapping formation. The sounds of metal cutting stone abated, and Uthar breathed in relief and turned to the mountain.

The accrued faith from months of prayer poured into the divine avatar, bringing their summoning closer to fruition. But only five seconds passed before a huge form shot out of the formation and crashed into the mountain with enough force to create cracks across its surface. The whole Ridgebane Array exploded the next second, and Uthar blanched upon seeing the Draugr holding the head of the second anointed construct.

The head was crushed, and the construct collapsed. The lauded Ridgbane Array hadn’t even managed to buy them ten seconds!

Worse, a storm of Death was dragged toward the Draugr as thousands of pitch-black tendrils stretched for twenty meters from his back like skeletal wings. The tendrils hummed with a soul-wrenching buzz, agitating the Death-attuned energies in the area. It came storming into the Draugr’s body, ripping apart the lingering effect of the Ridgebane Array.

With his five-meter frame shrouded in darkness and swirling halo, the Draugr looked like a fallen God. His ominous aura towered as the wings swallowed a seemingly inexhaustible amount of energy until two crackling orbs formed at the wingtips. A palpable sense of imminent doom was unleashed as he gazed upon a swirling grey haze rapidly forming around the axe.

The haze swallowed the two crackling orbs of destruction, and Uthar knew he couldn’t wait any longer.

“Gaia!” he roared, sacrificing all his remaining Faith Energy to summon a dome of impregnable stone.

Kalva had already summoned his eight guardians, forming an inner barrier pointed at the cardinal directions. Pa’Sur activated his defensive domain, which would weaken any foreign Dao. But even with their layers of defense and Azra’s protective umbrella, Uthar didn’t feel safe. What was that man doing?

“Futile,” a grating voice echoed from outside.

The world froze before reality came crashing down upon them. The impregnable wall of [Gaia’s Sanctuary] shattered, split in two by an unstoppable edge. The cardinal statues crumbled, and Pa’Sur’s domain was ripped to shreds. A groan escaped from the Mentalist’s mouth, but Uthar had no time to worry about that useless bastard.

He pushed his Mana domain to its limits as he tilted the divine avatar. The deadly blade ground against his path, but Azra’s protection allowed him to finally exhaust the attack. Just as he thought himself safe, his danger sense warned of mortal peril. The protective domain of Azra had become frayed when blocking the ultimate strike, and a chain reeking of destruction slipped inside their sanctuary.

And it was coming for him.

Ruthlessness shone in Uthar’s eyes. A mental command activated the command token hidden beneath his robes. Pa’Sur’s eyes glazed over just as he recovered from the spiritual backlash, long enough for Uthar to push the Mentalist in front of him. The chain latched onto the man, and by the time he woke up, he’d been yanked out of the protective dome.

Uthar took a shuddering breath, knowing he’d just escaped a terrible fate. He’d seen what happened to Galvo after getting touched by one of that madman’s chains. He refused to have his body bisected in this forgotten corner of space, and the Mentalist had proven useless against the Draugr’s mental defenses.

Besides, it was mostly his fault they found themselves in this desperate situation. Offering himself as a substitute sacrifice was the least he could do. As the Mentalist was ripped out to meet his fate, [Gaia’s Sanctuary] mended and sealed them inside. The connection to [Stonewhisper] vanished, and it didn’t even take a second before their sanctuary began shaking from an unrelenting onslaught.

One corrosive mark after another was added to the domain—the Draugr himself must be hammering the barrier. It was only a matter of time. However, the lunatic was finally out of lethal attacks it seemed.

“It’s payback time,” Uthar growled a few seconds later, ignoring the unspoken reproach in Kalva’s eyes.

The two floated into the mountain above. A soothing warmth spread through Uthar’s body as Azra’s spirit embraced him, and the stress and fear accumulated from this ill-fated encounter melted away. He’d become the Apostle of the Dawn Mountain, and he’d stand tall, long after this Draugr and his descendants turned to dust. He ordered [Gaia’s Sanctuary] to self-destruct as they emerged like a butterfly from its cocoon.

Only to be met by an orb of utter nothingness.

The enormous stone face only managed to resist for a moment before the Oblivion Beacon disintegrated its defenses and pushed into the eye on its forehead.

‘SACRILEGE!’ a grand voice boomed in Zac’s mind, and a terrifying pressure bore down on both his body and soul.

Zac felt like an angry god had turned its attention to him, in a far more palpable sense than when he conjured Heaven’s wrath. Faith Energy. These two had summoned a wisp of a god and hid inside its avatar. Thank God he’d acted fast enough, opting to use the same strategy as when he fought the Eidolon inside the Twilight Ascent.

Encountering a Mountain God was unexpected, but it wasn’t a surprise they were cooking up something dangerous. Why else would they sit around while the aura of the floating mountain kept rising? [Pillar of Desolation] was about to collapse in either case. Truthfully, he’d been lucky they’d given up when they had. A few more good hits and the rivers would have collapsed, destabilizing the whole skill.

He’d hoped the Peak-quality [Desperation’s End] would be enough to split the mountain in two before they reached this point, but the defenses of Earth cultivators were simply too sturdy. At least it provided the opportunity to take out the Mentalist.

Zac had been prepared and timed everything perfectly with the pillar, yet it felt like he was about to be crushed under the unrelenting pressure. New tears replaced those which the [Soulhaze Lily] had just mended, and muscles tore under the unbearable physical pressure. The presence demanded him to give in and kneel in obeisance, but that triggered an unprecedented ferocity from his body.

His three Draugr Nodes rippled with power, filling him with the gift of the Abyss, muting the roar of the false god. Adamance, Conviction, and Immutability. How could a descendant of Eoz bow to some crappy mountain? His aura surged, and he drew upon all his strength to push the [Pillar of Desolation] farther into the crumbling head.

The Mana domain had already crumbled, forcibly ripped apart by Oblivion. Between that and the god’s defenses, the beacon had shrunk by two-thirds, with only the kernel of Annihilation remaining. But that was enough. It came into contact with something ancient, unyielding, something that not even Oblivion could erase. The feeling only lasted a moment before it was gone, forced out of this realm by Zac’s advance.

Left was a broken face bereft of any divinity. What remained of the Oblivion Beacon erupted and blew it apart. A bloody shape fell out from the crumbling form, and his heart was pierced before he could recover from the backlash. More Kill Energy poured into Zac’s body, but he didn’t spare the fallen mage a second glance. He scoured the collapsing face for clues until he spotted a second body tumbling toward the ground.

His Miasma was running low, but he had ample stores of Void Energy. He disappeared in a puff and appeared next to the leader. [Black Death] was already falling toward his head, its gleaming edge filled with Death and Conflict. Like deadly spears, the remaining chains of [Love’s Bond] converged on the leader, and Zac could feel Alea’s killing intent as she was out for vengeance.

Axe and chains hit true, but Zac swore when the corpse crumbled into stone. A burst of energy erupted from within an inconspicuous stone just as Zac struck. Zac looked over with surprise. He’d scanned that stone with his soul, Draugr vision, and [Cosmic Gaze]. All three had said nothing was there, yet there clearly was. Unfortunately, nothing remained by the time Zac reached the source except some glimmering sand.

The leader had gotten away.

“Was that you guys?” Zac asked, glancing down at the translucent bracelet on his wrist.

“Nope, that was all him. Pretty impressive escape method, for it to work inside a Calamity Storm,” Null commented. “I can’t imagine he’s in good shape, though. Such a forceful method always has drawbacks, like damaged foundations. He might have lost his opportunity to break through here.”

“So one slipped through the cracks, after all,” Zac sighed.

“Well, him running for his life toward the exit should help with the next part,” Null commented.

“Not as much as his corpse would have,” Zac countered, turning to the unmoving bodies of the three fallen warriors.

Normally, the Mentalist wouldn’t have left a corpse after being captured by [Pillar of Desolation]. However, Zac opted to decapitate him before he was turned into another statue, leaving him with a body almost a match to Vilari’s. Perhaps this one could become a disciple of hers after being awakened.

The trio joined the growing collection in his Corpse Sack while their rings entered one of his pockets. There was no time to go through his windfall right now. Anyone within miles would have been able to sense their battle, and Zac didn’t want to stick around in case a third party arrived to fish in muddy waters.

He briefly scanned his body as he ate a Pseudo D-grade Soldier Pill. He was actually in a pretty good state. His opponents this time were simply too unlucky. Their turtle strategy might have worked against most. Zac guessed less than fifty people in the Perennial Vastness would be able to break open that formation before they could finish their preparations.

But when faced with someone like Zac, they’d become sitting ducks locked on a path toward their doom. His body only suffered some fractures from fighting against the false god’s pressure. His soul was actually better off from when the fight began, as the [Soulhaze Lily]’s energies still hadn’t been exhausted.

Zac gave the cave a quick look before flashing away, appearing at the exit. The storm still raged, which wasn’t a surprise considering less than three minutes had passed since he entered the cave. After scanning the surroundings with his soul and other senses, he stepped into the madness, continuing his journey toward the island’s edge.

He’d fought off the first wave of profiteers, but this tribulation was far from over. Even discounting the parties waiting on the other shores, there was one more enemy he had to deal with.

The Calamity itself and the vast chasm between him and the exit.

32

FINAL GAUNTLET

The air screamed, and a series of explosions ripped open a set of new wounds before Zac’s blood calmed the storm in his immediate vicinity. He was almost dragged to the sky, but he took out his bar of [Nightblight Alloy] to anchor himself to the ground. The huge block was twisted and bent, with most of its spirituality gone. It had become scrap, but it was still heavy enough to serve its purpose.

It should last him until he left this place. And if not, he had more heavy materials prepared in his Spatial Ring.

As Zac expected, he didn’t need to travel far before reaching the island’s edge. Visibility was so bad he couldn’t even see a few meters ahead. He would probably have run right off the edge if not for his spiritual domain. The storm was more ferocious at the shores, where the downdraft agitated the immense amounts of energy around him. Unsurprisingly, neither beasts nor cultivators were waiting for him, like when he first jumped islands.

Just scanning the immediate vicinity was difficult, so spotting the starter island far in the distance was downright impossible. The chaotic storm drowned out all sounds and energy. There could be an all-out war raging on the other shores for all he knew.

Zac found a crevasse partly protected from the storm, and his ichor helped it become a temporary harbor against the madness. The idea was to use the shrouding effect of the storm to his advantage as he made his way to the teleporter. He was confident in being able to elude most people in this environment. And even if he were spotted, he could probably outrun them when utilizing the calming effect of his blood.

It was disallowed to stay in the immediate vicinity of the teleportation pillar for more than ten minutes. So long as he made it within a few hundred meters, he’d be safe. As far as he was concerned, the biggest hurdle was the vast gulf between himself and the next island. The problem was the same as what he’d encountered in the Twilight Chasm.

Jumping between the mountains had been a dangerous venture, where he risked being dragged into the depths by the powerful and erratic currents. Here, he faced a similar issue, and he didn’t have a bunch of throwaway flying treasures that could take the brunt of the impact. He had three gliders—the main one and two spares—but he didn’t expect them to last more than a few seconds before being ripped apart by the winds.

That didn’t mean the crossing was impossible. He’d considered this problem since the storm descended. This time, he hadn’t been dragged into the air like when he entered, and he’d already come up with multiple solutions. Still, Zac didn’t move, opting to observe the storm for a bit longer.

The more Zac looked, the more he felt there was an order to the madness of the Calamity. Perhaps order was the wrong term, but there were rules to the lack of rules in the endless war between Life and Death. Zac couldn’t pinpoint any patterns, it was more an instinctual thing. He didn’t know if it was intuition awarded by his path or lingering comprehension from the times he’d held true Chaos in his body. Either case, he felt a weak connection to the everchanging vista, a connection which grew stronger as time passed.

Nothing special happened for the next ten minutes. Zac saw no one cross the chasm, and no cultivators had passed by his hideout. Neither was there any news forthcoming from the Earth cultivator who managed to escape. If he hadn’t gotten any Kill Energy by this point, he had most likely survived. He hadn’t opted to send out a message like the leader of that other coalition he’d butted heads with. Which was a shame. Zac was a tad disappointed. A global message saying a lone Draugr was carrying the [Calamity Core] would have been a good misdirect.

Suddenly, Zac’s eyes widened and he shot forward, the Void Energy in his body instantly transforming him into an abyssal wraith. It was intangible and the reasons were unclear, but this was his window of opportunity. Even the fierce winds slowed as the Calamity was reduced to a dour monochrome hue. His intangible form moved with speed and precision, weaving an intricate web between the greater accumulations of energy as he followed the guiding beacon of the teleportation pillar.

One thing was different since he’d taken the leap of faith between the mountains of the Twilight Chasm, apart from his strength being far greater. He’d since gained his Draugr Hidden Nodes, of which [Adamance of Eoz] was incredibly useful in this situation. The gales and unstable energies tried to destabilize his skill and rip him apart, but he refused to give in.

The Hidden Node made him an immovable stone in a surging river. The effect had even grown more pronounced after he’d improved his Heart Cultivation. Zac had long since realized that the Draugr Nodes resonated with emotion. The more purpose that pushed you forward, the more the Abyss would provide.

It allowed Zac to resist having his vulnerable spectral form destroyed as he moved across the gulf. Even then, he had to endure an agonizing baptism for every meter he advanced. Eventually, he couldn’t hold on any longer, even if he hadn’t moved more than half the distance. At that very moment, the surroundings darkened, and a bloodied Zac appeared in the air, grinning upon seeing a huge piece of rock falling toward his location.

The boulder was hundreds of meters across, its sheer mass subduing the storm around it as it fell toward him. Whatever kept the mountains and islands afloat was still acting upon the massive boulder, and it descended with less than half the expected speed. This was exactly what he thought he’d sensed in the storm and why he shot out from his hiding place. His instincts proved him right, even if his position was slightly off.

He gritted his teeth and repositioned himself with another burst of spectral movement. He was now right out of the falling mountain’s way, and a command to his Specialty Core prompted a surge of vibrant Life to spread through his body. The ichor painting his body black was joined by a coating of red. Zac had started falling already, but a patch of grass appeared beneath his feet. He stood upon the boulder a moment later and began running across its surface.

Five golden pillars were erected in his wake, right in the middle of the rock, while a golden wreath appeared on Zac’s head. The five pillars were perfectly straight, with ancient steles fastened to them. Yet they seemed like the fingers of an empyrean God digging out from the ground to protect him. The golden radiance of [Empyrean Aegis] joined the gold and black of the surroundings, and the Life-attuned half of the storm was curtailed just like the Death was.

Order and tranquility were imposed on the area, forming a sanctuary in a world gone mad. Zac didn’t stay on the falling boulder after confirming the situation. He jumped off the edge, each step taking him hundreds of meters with [Earthstrider]. The environment severely suppressed his movement skill the last time he was caught in the madness. With the help of the defensive domain awarded by [Empyrean Aegis], he could move almost half the distance of the skill’s original capability.

The boulder and the pillars grew increasingly distant as they continued their descent into the depths, but it didn’t matter. Reaching Peak-mastery of the defensive skill had fundamentally changed how it worked. It was no longer a defensive domain centered around the area close to the pillars. It was now two domains connected through the laurel on Zac’s head, transmitting the energy of the pillars to his direct surroundings. Any damage was diverted and transmitted back to the pillars.

If he’d stayed close to the pillars, the two domains would have superimposed, increasing the suppression and defense by almost half. The skill would also have worked even without the mountain piece acting as a foundation. However, the falling boulder created a small wind tunnel in its wake, protecting the pillars from taking too much damage from the ambient atmosphere. Thus, they could tank more damage for Zac.

The distance the skill worked was incredible. During his experiments back on Earth, Zac managed to keep the skill active with the pillars on one side of his island while he stood on the other. With the speed the boulder fell, he would long since have landed on the other shores before the pillars were dragged out of reach. Of course, he couldn’t expect the skill to work as well in this chaotic environment.

Zac soon closed in on the limit of air steps permissible by [Earthstrider]. By that point, two pillars had already crumbled from forcing his way through the storm. Yet three remained, so Zac took out his glider, using the lull the empyrean domain awarded him. Zac used every method in the book to force his way through the storm. Two broken pillars turned to four, and crackling sounds echoed out from his golden crown as the storm furiously tried to rip apart the empyrean domain.

Eventually, the final pillar crumbled, which unleashed a massive golden wave. The storm was pushed back for over a hundred meters, and Zac used the breather to take out a patch of soil to reset [Earthstrider]. Still, no land was in sight. He steeled his heart as he plunged into the madness, using only his body to brave the explosions. [Ancestral Woods] would have managed to move him a good distance, but it was a landlocked skill.

The shallow cuts across his body were soon replaced with massive tears that released copious amounts of blood. Without his powerful constitution, he would have been rendered unconscious from such a loss. Instead, it turned into a weapon that allowed him to fly a little bit farther. But the wounds accumulated too fast, and Zac couldn’t keep up any longer. He could only pray he’d made it far enough as he took out another heavy metal block and fell toward the ground.

Zac’s prayers were soon answered as solid rock rapidly came up on him. A groan escaped his lips as he slammed down, worsening his wounds. The crossing had been deadlier than the fight with the Earth cultivators, and the teleportation array was still over an hour’s travel away—a journey well beyond what he could endure in his current condition.

His body creaked in protest, but he scrambled to his feet and started running. He moved while scanning the surroundings, continuously using the trapped Kill Energy to run [Surging Vitality]. He needed to be a bit bloodied to stave off the storm, but the last stretch had pushed him far beyond what was needed or safe. After five minutes, Zac sensed a small crack in the mountain, leading to a hidden cave ten meters deeper in the foundations.

Death made a reluctant return and he snuck inside using [Abyssal Phase]. Zac spent the better part of the next hour recuperating and recovering his Miasma. The moment he felt strong enough, he moved out again, opting to stay undead. All skills but [Pillar of Desolation] could be used again, meaning he wasn’t a sitting duck. Besides, his human form had probably been spotted entering the Calamity days ago, which meant people might be looking for him.

Zac hid his presence with every tool he possessed as he continued his trek toward the exit. He sensed a few discordant auras ahead, most likely arrays erected to brave the storm. Zac gave them a wide berth, but a frown appeared on his face after half an hour. The storm was abating.

His protective cover was about to disappear, and his senses could already reach twice as far as before. It helped him navigate the dangerous terrain, but the risk of discovery increased by the second. Zac shredded all pretenses as he started running as fast as his legs could carry him, opting for speed over stealth.

An increasingly bad feeling settled within him as the minutes passed until he sensed a minute ripple.

A tracking array. Zac stopped in his tracks, and three corpses appeared on the ground. Each was pierced by a chain, soon forming a macabre entourage floating behind Zac as he closed in on the teleporter. He only managed to proceed another five hundred meters before the expected blockade appeared.

“That’s far enough, Draugr.” A booming laugh echoed as a glittering barrier sprung up around him.

It shuddered when faced with the abating gales but held in the face of the storm.

Six beastmen, led by a white-and-gold furred lionman approached. A large sapphire was fastened on his forehead, and hundreds of smaller gemstones were connected by intricate golden links in his mane. He exuded a powerful aura that partly harmonized with the environment: Life and Nature.

“I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw the son of Azra desperately flee toward the teleporter, looking like he’d been chewed and spit out by a Hellmaw,” the lion said. “I guess it was true. Looks like you’re even more dangerous than we thought. But you’ve already fought one battle, and you’re all alone. Hand over the [Calamity Core], and you can be on your way.”

Zac inwardly swore. He’d hoped his gruesome display would have at least given anyone second thoughts about targeting him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to subdue this beastkin, and Zac wasn’t surprised. The lion gave off an even greater pressure than the Earth cultivators, even if he was only a fifth-echelon guest. Either a new arrival or someone who intentionally kept his Mana low to enjoy the opportunities of the Perennial Vastness a bit longer.

It looked like another battle couldn’t be avoided. Zac wasn’t confident in finishing the job with his undead form alone. He would probably have to find a chance to swap races and fight on as a human. It would expose his second identity ahead of schedule, but getting out of the Calamity with the [Calamity Core] was more important than scamming people like he did before the previous mission release.

But the barrier exploded just as Zac prepared to activate his skills.

“Who said he’s alone?” a stern voice cut through the winds as the area was filled with a storm of blood.

Death was no longer Death, and Life was no longer Life. It was fused into blood, the grand heritage of the Eternal Clan. In the heart of the storm, the two vampires walked, accompanied by three Revenants, two Corpselords, and what appeared to be a Death-cultivating human. The two vampires were the very same ones he’d seen at a distance in Vastness City, who he later learned were called Ysaya and Solomis Noz’Serasta. It was Solomis who’d spoken just now, and his face was a cold mask of murderous intent.

He’d also seen a Zoris Noz’Visku in the Vastness City, but he wasn’t present today. It didn’t matter. Ysaya and Solomis were the stronger of the three, each having an aura that matched the lion’s. Furthermore, they were barely restrained by the unstable environment, just like how Uona had thrived in the Twilight Ocean. The individual auras of their followers weren’t at the level of the beastkin, but by adding Zac, undead outnumbered beastkin nine to six.

“Your dream must have muddied your senses,” Ysaya added with a smile, though killing intent veritably poured out of her body.

One by one, an array of sanguine icicles formed around her. Each contained enough energy to annihilate most Peak E-grade cultivators, yet the vampire seemed to have no problem forming over thirty.

“Maybe it’s time for you all to wake up.”

The lionman frowned at the not-so-veiled threat, hesitantly glancing at Zac, who mutely stared back. His eyes briefly shifted to the three bodies hanging from the chains before he shook his head with a sigh.

“Whatever. Guess luck’s on your side,” the lionman said as he motioned the others to back down.

“Who’s to say who the lucky one is today?” Zac countered as he walked over to the two vampires, stowing the corpses before the environment damaged them too much.

The woman looked at Zac curiously before shrugging, and the group turned toward the teleporter. Zac was technically among kin, but his vigilance only increased as the minutes passed.

“So, are you here to search me as well?” Zac asked after they were well out of earshot. “I doubt you came running out of the goodness of your hearts.”

It was certainly true that while the Undead Empire had internal friction, they stood united against outside pressure. However, his experiences in the Twilight Ocean already proved unity collapsed in the face of opportunity. That was doubly true in secluded places like Mystic Realms, and the Eternal Clan was the most mercurial of the Divine Races. For them to stick out their necks for him was highly unlikely, even if they wouldn’t necessarily go out of their way to rob him.

Something was wrong with the situation. Two sets of sanguine eyes turned toward Zac, giving him an appalling sense of déjà vu of his desperate battle with Uona.

“True,” Ysaya grinned. “You’ve given us some prestige in the short window since you arrived, but that’s not enough for us to come running to your aid. We do have ulterior motives.”

33

A FAVOR OWED

Zac calmly looked at the smiling vampire, but his Dao was already coursing through his [Thousand Lights Avatar]. He’d unleash [Void Zone] at the slightest energy fluctuations and kill as many as he could before they had the chance to react to having their energy and Dao nullified.

“Relax,” Ysaya said with a helpless shake of her head. “Why does it feel like I just had a brush with the eternal slumber? We’re not here to take what you’ve found, even if we’re curious about it. We’re here because of them.”

Ysaya pointed at the followers standing to the side, and Zac glanced over with a raised brow.

“Them?”

It was only one word, but it conveyed his skepticism. Since when could some Revenants or Corpselords move two Eternal Clan members? Especially when the two vampires were the more powerful party. There were a few Revenant and Corpselord factions with great power and influence in the Undead Empire, but not even the scions of those clans and sects would be able to dictate the actions of Ysaya and Solomis.

“Mistress An’Azol sends her regards, Master Umbri’Zi,” the sole living cultivator said with a bow.

“Tavza sent you?” Zac said, his eyes turning into narrow slits.

“The mistress regrets the misunderstanding that transpired on the outside and had us come here to clarify some points,” a Revenant explained as he handed over a box. “She also asked us to assist you in any way we could. Upon seeing the global task and making some inquiries, we realized it was most likely you who triggered it. Thus, we approached the young masters of the Noz’Serasta to render assistance.”

“Assistance in exchange for a favor owed,” Solomis said.

No wonder. A favor from one of the two leading clans of the Draugr race was incredibly useful. Their family would richly reward these two after coming home with such a boon. Even better, it didn’t cost Zac a dime.

“Well, convey my thanks to Tavza if you get the chance,” Zac nodded at the Revenant as he accepted the box.

“I’ve always heard the Azol princess is beyond haughty, not even sparing her fellow Draugr a glance,” Ysaya smiled as she leaned closer. “Yet she’s showing you such deference. Makes one wonder what’s so special about you.”

“Nothing really, we’re just good friends,” Zac said.

“Uh, huh,” Ysaya said, clearly not buying it.

“I heard of an Umbri’Zi scion a few years ago,” Solomis interjected. “An Arcaz Umbri’Zi.”

“That’s me,” Zac sighed, not bothering to hide it.

He wore his standard Arcaz face and was already called Master Umbri’Zi. There was not much point hiding it—it seemed more pertinent to prepare for the fallout.

“As I thought,” Solomis nodded, and Zac was surprised to see his cold visage warm up a bit.

“What’s that? What’s going on?” Ysaya said curiously.

“Noz’Valadir,” Solomis reminded.

“Ah! That was you?” Ysaya exclaimed, her four pupils fusing to one as she stopped and looked straight at Zac.

A tense silence stretched out, and the other undead warriors either moved away or reluctantly prepared for battle.

“Good job!”

“Huh?” Zac said.

“Why look so surprised?” Ysaya grinned. “Not like she was part of our branch. Those upstarts have acted all high and mighty lately because of some good luck. They even pressured our clan for a few of our ancestral ponds. Who knows what would have happened if they got a third Autarch in such short order? Their disastrous excursion to the frontier knocked them down a notch. And there’s suddenly a slot to visit the Eternal Halls ripe for the taking.”

“Uh, well. Glad I could be of service,” Zac coughed.

“You’re cultivating Pure Death,” Solomis commented as his sanguine eyes looked Zac over. “No wonder you’re already running around after breaking the commandments in such an overt way.”

“Yeah, well,” Zac shrugged, not wanting to stay on that subject for too long. “You didn’t bring Catheya?”

“That Draugr girl? She wanted to come, but the Grand Firmament Coalition got in the way,” Ysaya explained. “She’d only draw attention if she entered the Calamity, so she’s acting as a decoy in Vastness City instead. Thanks to her, only nine entered the Calamity instead of the planned thirteen.”

“Those people again?” Zac frowned.

“Yes, so it’s time to harvest.”

Zac gave Ysaya a questioning look.

“The favor was good, but there’s no reason to return so soon. We’ve already paid the entrance fee, right? More importantly. This is a rare opportunity to collect some high-quality blood and bodies. But the moment you step through the teleporter, the bait is gone,” Ysaya said, the bloodthirsty look in her eyes returning.

“Only question is, can you still fight after dealing with those people you had dangling from your chains?”

“Just lead the way,” Zac snorted.

An hour later, an exhausted Zac stood in front of the teleportation pillar, still in his undead form. He and the Noz’Serasta scions had come to an agreement where they’d targeted the Grand Firmament Coalition in an ambush. After a furious battle, two of theirs had fallen while one of their lieutenants had almost been crippled. Whether he’d be able to recover or not was unclear, but they’d failed to prevent him from fleeing back to his mansion.

The vampires had siphoned off some blood of another four, which was the same as stealing a part of their foundations. In exchange, two of their undead followers had racked up some nasty wounds, but they’d recover in a month or two. The clash wasn’t that deadly, but that was the norm. There was no point in fighting to the death for the weaker party, and they’d fled the moment they realized they were outmatched.

Besides, the Grand Firmament Coalition leader, Nerven Serku, wasn’t even there. He’d arrived in the Calamity but opted to take a strike team and head farther into the Calamity in hopes of finding the core. Those who remained were just a backup squad responsible for gathering intelligence and ambushing solo travelers.

The two vampires wanted to target more people after witnessing Zac’s might, such as the loose coalition of solo adventurers. After some deliberation, Zac passed on joining. Ultimately, he didn’t want to kill random people to advance his goal. If the aim had only been some light robbery and snatching Mana, then fine, but the vampires wanted blood and bodies. Even if he hadn’t personally killed anyone in such a scenario, he would still have tipped the battle in their favor.

The spatial gate opened as he touched the alabaster pillar, and he stepped through after glancing up at the sky. They were waiting for him up there. There was no way he could have missed that familiar sensation. A set of Remnants, just like he’d expected.

He’d known it since upgrading his soul. Cracking open his cage had created a brief resonance, confirming their existence and rough location. They were somewhere in the upper layers of the Calamity. He’d considered going to fetch them instead of returning but rejected the idea. Ultimately, he couldn’t rely on the Remnants to get him out of every jam.

Returning to Vastness City without their aid could be seen as a test. Besides, he had just broken through with body and soul. His soul, especially, was in a fragile state—it wasn’t the time to mess with those things. He could always fetch the Remnants before forming his core, adding a fourth set to his tally. From there, he only needed one more for ‘Atavism,’ whatever that meant.

The moment Zac fully stepped through the spatial gate, a mysterious swirl gathered around him. He suddenly felt more attuned to the world. Or perhaps it was more apt to say the world was more in tune with him. The change no doubt came from a sudden influx of Mana from completing the quest, and he curiously opened his screen.

[Mana: 14,703]

He’d gained 4,900 Mana since emerging from Sinner’s Lament. In reality, he’d earned another 1,000 from five kills inside a Red Zone—the base 100 per kill plus an automatic 100 bounty, whether you discovered a blueprint weakness or not. That had all gone into paying for his four-day stay inside the Calamity, though. That environment was just too expensive. He would have to find a quest to cover the cost the next time he visited. Another 100 Mana had gone into running the simulation array back in his mansion.

“So that undead newcomer got it,” one of the onlookers muttered upon seeing the air swirl around Zac.

Zac glanced at the gathered crowd, confirming no one had any plans to target him. The mission was over, and the rules of Vastness City were in place. There wasn’t much point in attacking now, especially not since it was common knowledge he’d won all those duels, with most not even being able to land a single blow. Zac walked away, moving through a series of random streets and alleys until he was mostly certain no one was following.

No one except a presence in the shadows.

“‘We’ll keep our heads down and just get our cores.’ That was you, you know. Some sales pitch,” a voice dripping with sarcasm said in his ear, prompting an embarrassed smile to spread across Zac’s face.

“Yeah, well,” Zac laughed as a hooded Ogras stepped out from the shadows. “Things happen. And it’s not like you believed me anyway.”

“I guess that’s true,” Ogras sighed. “You got the thing?”

“I got it,” Zac nodded.

“Was it because of that book of yours or your aggravatingly high Luck?”

“The latter,” Zac said, a smile playing on his lips. “The treasure kind of appeared right on top of my head after I broke through.”

“Of course it did,” the demon groaned.

“Is Catheya alright? I hear she had another run-in with the Grand Firmament Coalition,” Zac asked.

“She’s fine. I opted to stay close to her just in case rather than join the fun. That place seemed like a bad fit for me in either case,” Ogras said. “Those people backed down after she retreated into that tavern. It’s one thing to harass an individual. But targeting that establishment is to anger every single undead in the Perennial Vastness.”

“She’s still there?” Zac asked.

“Should be. What’s your next move?”

“Plan B,” Zac said after some thought. “In one day or so.”

“Want company?”

“Sure,” Zac readily agreed. “I’m probably skipping the mission release, though.”

“That’s fine; I think it’s better for me to research that book than throwing myself into another netherblasted zone like Sinner’s Lament. It should be my best bet of reaching the upper echelons in time without delaying your work. I might pick up some quick missions in a few Green Zones while studying the patterns,” Ogras said.

“You understand them?” Zac said with surprise.

“Well, not really. But I have a decently capable helper.”

The demon was obviously referring to K’Rav, the goblin warlock, and Zac felt Ogras was probably on the right track. His strength was in the middle of the pack among the guests, which meant the most lucrative Red Zones were incredibly dangerous unless he found one perfectly suited to his path and skillset. He could still join Zac on missions, but the more taxing the task, the bigger the contribution skew would get. At some point, he’d be taking greater risks for lesser rewards.

Using Ventus’s strategy to supplement his Mana seemed like the best plan. After all, Ventus wasn’t all that powerful, yet he’d reached the ninth echelon, surpassing 99% of all guests. Certainly, he’d been in the Perennial Vastness for over two decades, but a big part of that had been spent studying the patterns to set up his strategy.

The only other alternative for Ogras was to rely heavily on his [Shadewar Flag] to force his way through Red Zones. However, that thing was a lot like Zac’s Remnants. It contained grade-breaking power, but it wasn’t Ogras’s. Furthermore, Zac could tell there were some costs to using it, even if Ogras had never explained exactly what they were. Using it a bit was fine, but it couldn’t be fully relied on.

“I’ll check in with Catheya before going back to rest,” Zac said. “I’m heading straight to that place in twenty-two hours.”

“See you there,” Ogras said, and he was gone the next moment.

Zac went straight to the tavern after getting an update, and a Revenant inside gestured toward one of the private rooms as he walked inside. Zac nodded in thanks and opened the door.

“Imagine my surprise. I had barely recovered from your mad crusade against the mounds when my vacation gets interrupted. Of all places, a Supreme treasure has appeared in the Calamity, no doubt turning that chaotic place into a veritable powder keg. And who do I know that was planning on heading to that very zone?”

“Well, that would be me,” Zac smiled as he closed the door behind him and sat down in front of Catheya.

“So I rush out of the East Qi Springs, with barely enough time to dress myself—”

“Now that’s a scene.”

Catheya rolled her eyes. “I come here, only to run into those firmament bastards. Like glue, those people. I essentially find myself under house arrest, acting as bait until you’re done wreaking havoc.”

“I’m sorry you got implicated,” Zac said as he took out a purple Death-attuned flower he’d found on his way to the storm chamber. “A souvenir from the Calamity Mountain that fell from the sky.”

“I’ll forgive you this time,” Catheya said as she accepted the flower with a small smile. “Just bring me along next time if you plan on doing something exciting.”

“I only planned on evolving my soul before returning. Trouble tends to keep finding me,” Zac said helplessly.

“Well, I’m glad you’re fine,” Catheya said as she enclosed the flower in a case of clear ice.

“How are you feeling?” Zac asked. “You’re looking better than when I last saw you, at least.”

“That’s a pretty low bar,” Catheya laughed. “I’ve never been so tired in my life. It’s terrifying trying to keep up with you. I slept a day straight before heading to the East Qi Springs.”

“I can’t believe you spent Mana on a spa,” Zac said with a shake of his head.

“It’s not just a spa,” Catheya said. “It’s a comprehensive treatment with acupuncture, medications concocted based on your Daos, healing, and recuperating arrays. One day in there was like resting for two weeks outside. Without it, I’d carry exhaustion and sequelae for the next mission. It just so happens to be a very nice spa as well. Why… don’t you wish to join me for a day trip next month?”

“Actually, that sounds pretty nice.”

“Really?” Catheya said, looking up from the flower with delight.

“Sure,” Zac nodded. “My next destination shouldn’t be too dangerous. But knowing my luck, some lost continent or ancient beast will probably fall from the sky.”

“Now that’s the truth,” Catheya smiled as she took out a bottle of wine.

“I could probably use a break afterward,” Zac said. “By the way, I met two followers of Tavza.”

Zac took out the box they handed him before, finding only a Recording Crystal inside.

Catheya sighed after it finished playing. “It looks like I was led by the nose back then.”

“True, but that doesn’t mean Tavza can be trusted. It just means there was another culprit this time,” Zac shrugged. “Maybe your escape will help keep them on their toes.”

Zac spent another hour catching up with Catheya while letting the tavern’s gathering arrays recover his depleted Miasma. Catheya had gained some insights during her stay in Sinner’s Lament, and she needed to seclude herself for a few weeks to ascertain whether it was something she should integrate into her core. Thus, she would also miss the mission release in the next few days. That meant the next outing would only be him and Ogras.

A few people were loitering in the streets when Zac exited, but he paid them no mind as he returned to his storefront. Giving it some thought, Zac infused his will into the shop. A fist-sized crystal appeared right next to the entrance. Anyone who infused their will into it would see a set of materials for sale. They were all things he’d picked up inside the Calamity. Some of the materials seemed useful for his Core Formation, but others weren’t useful to him.

Raw materials generally had very little value to his people back home. Even if the things he found were good, he had no people to extract their true value. Meanwhile, some guests here had incredibly deep pockets, and it was better to trade for Nexus Coins or crystals than bring them back to Zecia. The rates for materials were even higher here than in Twilight Harbor, though there was almost only demand for rare treasures found inside the Perennial Vastness or items that could help guests hunt for treasures.

Zac appeared in his mountaintop mansion, and coruscating waves of Buddha’s love greeted him. It wasn’t too bad. The pressure wasn’t as intrusive between his evolved soul and reaching the second echelon. The Core array was still trying to brute-force his blueprint by any means necessary, but Zac smiled upon seeing it hadn’t produced any real results after almost a week of running.

It had generated some scenarios where the core would turn a bit turbid or become weakened, but that was to be expected. Nothing was impervious to all Daos and elements. Seeing as the array at least produced some interesting data, Zac let it keep running while he began meditating.

A day later, Zac was almost in a perfect state. Eating the [Soulhaze Lily] saved him a month of recovery while strengthening his soul by around 5%. Only a few lingering cracks from channeling so much Remnant energies remained, though Zac noted his body healed that kind of damage significantly faster thanks to his Body Tempering breakthrough. It was a shame he hadn’t managed to retain more than 15% of the lily’s energy, but Zac wasn’t too broken up about it.

The lily still provided a lot of benefits, and there were no guarantees he would have been able to harness that much more of its efficacy if he brought it back. Besides, the Perennial Vastness was full of good things like the lily.

“Where to?” Null asked as Zac walked over to the teleporter.

“The Quarry,” Zac said, and a gate opened up.

It was time to find out what kind of opportunity Lord Engo believed waited for him.

34

THE QUARRY

Zac checked everything was in order before stepping through the teleporter. He had returned to his human appearance for this excursion. He wasn’t worried about being attacked—the Quarry was a Green Zone, after all. But Arcaz Umbri’Zi had created too many enmities in the short-run since he’d arrived.

If someone spotted him walking around in the Quarry, there was a real risk of people annoying and distracting him while he sought treasure. And he didn’t want any strangers around if he found whatever item that made even an Autarch take note. It wasn’t without some excitement Zac stepped through, and the soothing sound of a babbling brook and wind rustling in trees replaced the hymns of the Akaniṣṭha.

Zac had once visited a quarry on a field trip when he was young. It was that kind of environment he’d envisioned; a large hole dug out of the bedrock, perhaps with tunnels deeper into the ground. The picturesque image of a stream cutting through a hilly forest under a warm sunset was a bit jarring, even if he’d already read the reports. Of course, the information he’d gathered on the Quarry was more on function than form.

The Quarry was, just like the Keys of Ascension, a special Green Zone and one of the unique resources of the Perennial Vastness. It wasn’t spiritual stones or metals you excavated from this place, but rather something called Fate Kernels. Fate Kernels were a special Natural Treasure useful for Core Formation and nothing else. They acted as an amplifier of natural affinities, improving your connection to the Dao while speeding up the formation of your core. A Low-quality kernel improved the formation rate by roughly 5%, with each additional grade adding another five.

Saving a bit of time usually wasn’t that big of a deal for cultivators who counted their lifespan in millennia, but it was different when it came to breakthroughs. Even a talented cultivator would need months to form a core. Every single mistake during that process would worsen the result. A big mishap would ruin the whole process and likely kill you. The Fate Kernels would decrease the odds of this happening.

There were a few caveats, though. The most important was that they didn’t last long. They’d dissipate a few minutes after being excavated unless you absorbed or returned them to the ground. Therefore, you had to find your kernel yourself—there would never be any Fate Kernels appearing in the Vastness City. There had been a few occasions where cultivators managed to sell suitable kernels to nearby guests, but the odds of that happening regularly were incredibly low.

Secondly, you’d have to find a Fate Kernel matching your path. If the kernel’s affinities were even partly off, they’d do more harm than good. Third, there was no way to easily find them. At least there were no publicly known methods. They were hidden by natural formations, and stumbling upon them was a matter of luck and fate—hence the name. They even moved around, so encountering a good but unusable kernel was useless. You couldn’t sell the location to a cultivator. Most cultivators would spend a couple weeks in the Quarry to try their luck. If they hadn’t found anything by that point, they simply weren’t fated.

As for Zac, he likely wouldn’t have bothered with more than using the free week in the Quarry if not for Engo’s comment. Learning about the function of the Fate Kernels had only increased Zac’s confusion rather than explained Autarch’s suggestion. After all, Fate Kernels wouldn’t work on him.

The kernels improved your Core Formation process by amplifying your affinities, but what good did that do him? It was useless even if he lucked out and somehow found a Life-Death-Conflict Peak-quality Fate Kernel. A 20% boost on zero was still zero, something which Null had confirmed. A normal mortal might have some use of the kernels, though cultivators with high affinities had the most to gain.

There were no other treasures in the Quarry except the Fate Kernels either. The environment was essentially F-grade, with just enough spirituality to not cause discomfort. It was a far cry from the Calamity, which was so overloaded by energies and Dao that it was almost hard to breathe. Even then, Zac was full of anticipation as he set out. Perhaps there were secrets to this place beyond the publicly known information in Vastness City. Lord Engo shouldn’t be so bored as to throw out red herrings to random low-grade cultivators.

Zac looked around the forest and spotted a small marking on a tree. He began walking in the opposite direction, following a series of guiding markers until he arrived at a stout tree almost twice as big as the others.

“You’re here,” Ogras grinned as he stepped out from its shadows. “How’s the missus?”

“She’s fine,” Zac said. “Odd that items useful for core formations would appear in this kind of world.”

“Definitely,” Ogras agreed. “This place reminds me of some of the rootless worlds I visited in the Million Gates Territory. It’s almost unnerving there’s not even beasts to keep you on your toes.”

“So, we should just pick some random direction and start looking?” Zac asked.

“We might want to head to the riverbeds,” Ogras said as he took out a large map depicting the region. “From the looks of it, the riverbeds have been producing a good number of Medium-quality Fate Kernels. A few have even walked away with High-quality kernels from there.”

“What’s so special about the rivers?” Zac asked curiously.

“Not sure,” Ogras said. “Might be energy patterns or something. One theory is that the ‘best’ region changes over time, or perhaps between Cosmic Galleries. My map has six other observed hotspots, but the riverbeds are the closest. Of course, with your Luck, we can probably go anywhere as long as we avoid the starting region or the dried up veins.”

“This place isn’t that big,” Zac said. “The riverbeds are just over one day’s travel away. We can check it out first and then try another hotspot before returning if we don’t find anything within a few days.”

“Sure.” Ogras stowed the map and they took off at a run. “Let’s rush straight for the hotspot. I hear it’s almost impossible to find anything this close to the—”

“There’s one,” Zac interjected.

They stopped, and Ogras followed Zac’s eyes to a nondescript stone a few meters away.

“What? That thing?” Ogras said skeptically. “How could you possibly know that? I hear you need to release your Daos in waves to create resonance. And if that fails, break open things to see if anything’s inside. Are you making things up, hoping to prove me wrong?”

“Just a hunch.” Zac smiled as he walked over. “Proving you wrong would just be a fun bonus.”

“Whatever,” Ogras said with a roll of his eyes. “No one will be happier than me if you can actually sniff out Fate Kernels like a bloodhound. We might not be allowed to bring those things out of this place, but we could make some Mana selling your talents.”

“Guess we’ll find out,” Zac laughed.

He touched the stone and felt a cool sensation, and his heartbeat sped up as his hand entered the surface as though it was liquid. He reached around a second before dragging out what looked like a metal walnut. A smile spread across his face as he felt the weak fluctuations from within. The kernel was clearly Low-quality, and it contained a Dao Zac didn’t quite recognize. He guessed it was something related to the Peak of Impetus, but its aura was too weak to confirm.

“What the…” Ogras muttered. “It doesn’t even seem slightly related to you. There’s no way you’d resonate with this thing. What did you do?”

“Honestly? Not sure,” Zac said, frowning as he tried to gain some sense of the small ball. “I just felt it somehow.”

Zac wasn’t making things up. How did he know it was there? Even now, Zac wasn’t quite sure. As Ogras said, the Fate Kernel didn’t resonate with his Daos or path. Neither was it his newfound spiritual domain, which apparently was called Soul Sense, according to Catheya. It had told him it was just any normal rock. Yet he’d felt a minute pull from the stone.

The situation was a bit reminiscent of the trial Three Virtues had set up for him inside the Orom Word, where he had to use his heart to discern true from false. Yet, Zac could tell it wasn’t his heart either. If that were the case, the knowledge would have spread far and wide. After all, while Heart Cultivation was quite rare, it wasn’t unheard of. There were even cultivators having the heart at the center of their path, and there were others who had incredibly tempered hearts due to various reasons.

“Perhaps my Luck?” Zac ventured, even if it didn’t feel like it.

“Well, whatever it is, keep it up,” Ogras grinned. “Find me a good one, yeah? Shadows and Illusions. I’m not greedy, needing a Peak or Supreme-quality stone. Even a High-grade will do.”

“Is that all?” Zac said as he threw away the kernel. “First of all, let’s see if it was a lucky hunch or not.”

The guides wouldn’t confirm or deny the matter, but there were some rumors that it was best to return any kernel you found. If you let them dissipate, you’d weaken your Fate with the Quarry, lessening the odds of finding something useful. The grass rippled like water as the stone sunk into the ground. A moment later, it was gone, likely relocated to some other corner of the zone. During the process, Zac didn’t sense anything, and he had no better answer as to why he’d known the kernel was there.

They kept moving until Zac stopped again. This time he wasn’t looking at a rock but rather up at a small bird’s nest in a tree. He climbed up and observed the nest with all his senses and took out one of the eggs. He cracked the egg, and instead of yolk, a small amber broach depicting a beetle appeared. Before that point, it had looked and felt exactly like the other eggs.

“They come in all shapes and sizes, huh,” Ogras commented after Zac jumped down.

Zac curiously looked at the broach. “Earth and sun? Interesting combination.”

“More importantly, it really looks like your treasure sense is tuned to these things,” Ogras said, his eyes gleaming.

Zac nodded, focused on the pieces of broken shell. It was just like with the previous kernel. The moment the broach was extracted, he’d lost any connection to either egg or broach. Was it the formation he felt connected to rather than the kernels? Or was it something else? In either case, Zac believed it was related to why Lord Engo sent him here.

Zac and Ogras continued toward the riverbeds, spending the better part of the day trying to understand Zac’s ability. After ten hours and over fifty kernels, they’d unearthed some rules to Zac’s uncanny ability. By the looks of it, he could sense any broach within twenty meters. However, the faster they moved, the smaller that sphere would get. If they ran at top speed, he would almost have to step on the kernel to notice it.

The range wasn’t too impressive, but it was still an amazing ability. Most cultivators would be lucky if they found one or two kernels a day in the starting region when turning over every stone and inspecting every tree. One thing they hadn’t managed to confirm was whether he could tell the kernels’ grades before they were extracted from their formations. Every single one they’d found was Low-quality. Part of it was because they were so close to the teleportation array, but it hinted at how rare the higher-quality kernels were.

No wonder most people wouldn’t spend too much time in the Quarry. The odds of finding a suitable kernel were quite low, and it would most likely only provide a 5% boost. At some point, it became more efficient to just farm Mana and improve your Core Formation process.

A sudden energy surge made Zac and Ogras stop and look over. It wasn’t some beast or another kernel, but three cultivators who appeared between the forests. They’d moved fast using movement skills but had stopped upon noticing Zac and Ogras. The three were of the same race, an alien-looking four-armed biped that could only narrowly be considered humanoid.

There was no hint of aggression or killing intent on them, so Zac and Ogras walked over to chat. There were usually a few dozen people in the Quarry, though the numbers would most likely thin out as the mission release approached.

“Any luck?” Ogras grinned.

“Got one,” one of the three nodded. “You heading to the riverbeds?”

“Why, something wrong?” Ogras asked.

“A few really loud people there right now,” the alien shrugged. “Might want to check out another hotspot if you’re planning to form resonance.”

“Loud?” Zac asked.

“Some Gravity cultivator is creating earthquakes, makes it hard to sense anything,” one of the others explained. “Another one is using sound waves to pulverize the rocks on the riverbeds. It’s quite loud.”

If calmly meditating and sending out your Dao into the area in hopes of resonance was one method, then destruction was the other. By blowing up everything nearby, you had a chance to unearth kernels. It wasn’t a surefire method, though. Most pointed toward the kernels being able to flee when attacked, which could empty a whole region. Neither option had proven better than the other in finding suitable kernels. One was simply a targeted search, while the other cast a wider net in hopes of striking it rich. It ultimately depended on where your talents lay.

“We’re already halfway there. It would be a shame not to check it out. Besides, those kinds of people can’t go on forever,” Zac said.

“You three look a bit annoyed. Are you here to exchange pointers to release some stress?” Ogras grinned.

“No, thank you,” the alien laughed, confirming he’d already maxed out his duels for the month. “Rather, we’d want to exchange some information.”

“Oh?” Zac asked curiously.

“An eighth hotspot has been discovered. It’ll probably be general knowledge in a few weeks, but who knows? Going before the others might improve your odds of finding something good.”

“What do you want in return?” Ogras asked.

“Nothing important. We just want some details on what happened with the global mission. We were camped out here when the mission appeared.”

“Oh, sure,” Ogras said, his smile widening. “You met the right people. We didn’t enter ourselves, but we were outside the teleporter that day. That crazy Draugr got his hands on it.”

“The one from the message?” the first alien exclaimed.

“That’s right,” Ogras nodded. “Real lunatic, that one. Came stumbling out of the teleportation gate covered in blood. Heard he created a mess inside. Broke a Calamity Mountain and then killed his way back. Stay clear; that guy is nothing but trouble.”

Zac inwardly rolled his eyes but kept his face impassive.

“Did he announce if he’s planning on selling the item?” the third humanoid asked, speaking up for the first time.

The third was clearly stronger than his companions and most likely the leader. Zac had already realized it cultivated a mixed-meaning Dao where one half was Life. Zac guessed it hoped the [Calamity Core] was a Life-attuned item and thus useless for a Draugr.

“No idea,” Ogras shrugged after seeing Zac wasn’t about to speak up.

“Thank you,” the leader said, handing over an Information Crystal. “Best of luck on your hunt.”

“Have a good one,” Ogras waved, and both groups went their own way.

They didn’t meet any more cultivators and didn’t bother looking for more kernels. Between Ogras using his teleportations and Zac using [Earthstrider], they reached the riverbeds in half a day. They stopped at a crest, looking down at a vast expanse of dry soil. The riverbeds lived up to its name. There had to be thousands of them, stretching as far as the eye could see. A few were only a dozen meters across, while others were so wide, they might as well have been great lakes.

There was almost no water running. The smaller rivers were completely dried out, while the larger ones had a few trickles that any F-grade cultivator could jump across. The land between the rivers had some trees and shrubbery, but the plants were withered and on their last legs.

“It’s time for us to work,” Ogras said as he jumped into the dried out river. “And by us, I mean you.”

Zac snorted and jumped down from the ledge. He was just about to respond, but the moment his feet touched the riverbed, he felt his consciousness being wrenched away. Zac thought some Mentalist had ambushed him, but furiously struggling was to no avail. The world darkened, and Ogras’ voice grew distant.

Then, there was only a constellation.

35

A MARK ON THE TAPESTRY

Innumerable broken fragments floated in the air, locked in orbit by the immense energy fluctuations and inherent gravity of the vast ancestral platform. Below, the fractures of broken space swirled, forming a vortex as vast as reality itself. The two were locked in an ancient dance akin to a predator and its faltering prey. After a drawn-out struggle, the platform was like a dying man with one foot through the door to the beyond, desperately resisting fate.

The remnants of a whole civilization sat atop the ancient stones. Hundreds of millions of bodies, the smallest reaching thousands of meters into the air. Yet there was no movement, no sound. They had all given everything in hopes some would see the sun on the other side. They were failing.

The Aether no longer answered their calls, their continents had been reclaimed to be reforged. The testaments to their spirit and ingenuity were gone, their creations swallowed and consumed. All that remained was the platform.

The poison spread.

The innermost circle of the marooned was made up of six giants, each one the size of a continent. The grand ancestors who had held up the vault of the Heavens were broken and bent, shrunken from having their Aether siphoned to nurture the platform. And to protect their heritage.

The six ancestors held up a sphere shimmering with still-pristine Aether. Inside, a solitary building floated. In front of the ancestors, it was no more than a mustard seed. Yet it held their everything. Their history, their hopes, and their conviction.

Standing on the steps of the library, the caretaker endured, looking up at the enormous and distant faces. There was no anger, regret, or reluctance on their faces—only sorrow and release. Tens of thousands of years had passed since the last of the ancestors had fallen after enduring an eternity of loneliness. Now, only their lingering will maintained the platform and their heritage.

It was this accumulated will that had given birth to him, the corpse of the First People. Not living, not dead. He was locked in his prison of knowledge with no power to subvert the river of Fate. A shudder rippled through the platform, and another set of cracks appeared.

“We’re too late,” the corpse sighed, its hollow eyes peering beyond the layers of the storm. Beyond reality itself. “Or rather, too early. No fate, no fate.”

Only silence answered. To be the first was both a blessing and a curse. Now, they were out of phase. He could tell. It wouldn’t have helped even if the ancestral will managed to hold on beyond the curtain call. The poison was anathema to their being, yet the cosmos was to be remade in its image.

“If that is our fate, so be it,” the corpse sighed, turning to the library behind him. “But we shall leave our mark on the tapestry.”

A light lit up within the innermost sanctum of the Kaltorum Halls, and the whole platform started to rumble. The outer bodies, now no more than withered husks void of Aether, collapsed into stardust. They formed the first layer of the storm that consumed one layer after another.

Outer Supplicants, Explorers, Star Treaders, Cosmic Pathfinders. One by one, they joined the storm. Even the platform shrunk. The energy that was once used to resist the vortex now went into empowering the stardust. Into empowering the final ritual of their kin. Soon, even gargantuan ancestors crumbled, the Aether locked in their bodies igniting the stardust with their spirit. Endless energy poured out of the library, joining the storm outside the protective sphere.

The ancestral platform was gone, turned into a blazing galaxy that shielded the sphere as it fell toward the vortex. Even the poison was forced away, unable to eradicate the final ritual. The library shook, cracks spreading across the pillars that had stood for countless years. The corpse looked at the familiar halls one last time before he closed his eyes and joined the others.

The library exploded, erasing the last vestige of their civilization. But from within the destruction, 229 lights emerged. Each dragged enormous amounts of stardust to their side until all of it was consumed. Together, they formed a complex constellation that forced its truth on reality itself.

The constellation wasn’t static. Each of the lights held a supreme truth, and they took turns becoming the eye of the constellation. As such, one constellation was 229. Even its revolutions contained a supreme truth, one that barely managed to stave off the maelstrom’s hunger until the constellation flickered and disappeared. Left was a vortex no longer locked down and impeded, which rapidly consumed what little remained.

“Inheritor, we are the First People,” a booming voice echoed through the cosmos. “Born from the Aether, returned to the Aether. For so long, we searched the starry sky for answers, for others. We found none. We ask nothing in return for this gift. We only ask to be remembered.”

The scene shattered and was replaced by a dried out trough under an amber sky. Gone were the immense ripples of mysterious power. Instead, there was only poison.

“Aether… Void…” Zac muttered, his mind still awash with the scenes he’d just witnessed.

“I knew it.”

Zac’s glazed-over eyes focused, and he turned around. Ogras was standing just next to him with a victorious smile on his face. Zac’s thoughts were still a jumble. He slowly looked around, trying to compute what just happened. Just what was that vision?

It took a few minutes before Zac felt himself back to normal, able to process what he’d been shown. In a sense, it felt a lot like when he first came in contact with Ultom. That time, the vision had been triggered by the Cosmic Vessel passing through the inner barrier of the Void Star. This time, it seemed to have been triggered by him stepping onto the soil of the riverbeds.

Both had spoken of conviction and defeat. One had shown the broken-down castle wall of what Zac assumed was the Left Imperial Palace. The other vision depicted an ancient civilization’s ark supposed to give them a chance at survival. Yet there were also some differences.

Zac still shuddered upon remembering the vision of Ultom. The power engraved into the castle walls. The small courtyard which seemed to supersede the Dao itself. Just grazing the concepts of Ultom almost killed him.

Conversely, he was absolutely fine right now. The scene of those towering beings in this new vision looked incredibly imposing. The Orom would have been able to fit between the teeth of those six ancestors. And even if dead, they exuded nigh-incomprehensible power. At the least, they had to have been the equivalent of Late-stage Autarchs, but Zac suspected they were Supremacies.

Yet, neither they nor the ancient library gave off that unfathomable meaning. The whole vision was more distant, like he had been watching something on television rather than experiencing it. That didn’t mean these First People were weak. As far as Zac could tell, they were an incredibly powerful faction, but one that didn’t quite have the strength to leave an Eternal Heritage.

But when did this happen? Zac doubted they were from the previous era. Then they wouldn’t have called themselves first. Did their civilization actually spring up sometime during the Cataclysm between Eras, when the Dao was ripped apart and the Heavens gone? It would explain how they could cultivate the Void, or Aether as they called it. And the poison they mentioned was the Dao.

Zac had never considered it before, but it was possible that the Cataclysm and the Heavens’ reformation took billions of years. If Zac had to guess, there had been a lull sometime at the tail-end of the Cataclysm, one long enough for a Void-attuned species to appear. Then the final process kicked in as the Heavens began reforming, and these First People died out.

The ancestral platform was supposed to have shielded the best and brightest until the Cataclysm finished, but they had underestimated the process. Instead, the corpse had split their inheritance into 229 parcels and forced it through the vortex. It was like a faux Eternal Heritage, one that only had to survive the formation of a Heaven, not the destruction of one.

Faux or not, Zac’s heart beat with excitement. There was something amazing waiting for him here. Now, he just had to unravel the clues and unearth the truth.

“Hello?”

“Ah? What?” Zac said as he turned back to the demon. “Knew what?”

“That you were up to something,” Ogras said. “What is it? An inheritance? A lingering will of a supreme cultivator? A corner of the Heavens whispering your name?”

“I saw a vision. I haven’t confirmed it, but I think there’s an inheritance here,” Zac whispered. “A big one.”

“Old-monsters-popping-out-of-the-woodworks-big?” Ogras said.

“Kind of,” Zac said, warily looking at the sky.

“Do you take us for bandits?” Null scoffed. “The boss has collected innumerable inheritances over the years. If it’s been placed here, then it’s up for grabs for whoever’s fated.”

“My guide says it’s fine,” Ogras said.

“Mine as well.”

“Your girl doesn’t know you well enough yet. She should have known better than to go into secluded cultivation with you on the move.” Ogras grinned. “Well, then, what are we waiting for? What now? Where to?”

Zac gazed across the huge, dried riverbed before looking down at the ground beneath his feet. Nothing here seemed connected to that ancient platform or the First People. Did the riverbed perhaps make up a formation mirroring one of those constellations? It was too early to tell.

“It was all pretty cryptic. Let’s just look around for now,” Zac said after some thought. “Can you fly up and get a better look at the patterns of the rivers? I saw a bunch of constellations in the vision.”

“Of course. But remember, the soldiers get soup while the generals eat meat,” Ogras said before turning into a stream of shadows that shot straight into the air.

The demon never asked for details, and Zac wasn’t sure if he should tell. The Void and his bloodline were essentially his last secrets, and this inheritance was clearly related to his hidden affinity. It wasn’t that Zac didn’t trust Ogras, but he had a weird feeling that if people knew about it, they’d be worse off. Swept up and harmed by his fate. It was one thing for Iz to find out. She had Supremacies in her family who could protect her fate from being harmed.

But there were some things he could do. Zac took out sets of wooden plaques and began to carve the constellations one after another in case the vision faded. By the time the demon returned, he’d carved all 229 of them. Thankfully, they weren’t very complicated. With his experience in engraving, each only took a few seconds.

“Looks familiar?” Ogras asked as he threw over a Recording Crystal.

Zac looked at the lines formed by the rivers, trying to match them up with the many transformations of the constellation. Nothing. He’d hoped for something to jump out at him, a clear direction, but the land barely managed to spark something vague.

“I don’t think so,” Zac said with a shake of his head. “Do you see anything?”

The demon looked at the engraved plaques, a frown appearing on his face. “Odd. These patterns don’t seem like anything special.”

“It’s hard to explain or draw out like this,” Zac said. “These are all one while being distinct.”

“Well, should we keep walking toward the center of the riverbeds? There’s a small, dried out lake there. Might be something at the bottom. Should we rush it?”

“We’re not in that much of a hurry,” Zac said. “And there are no guarantees the answer is at the lake. I think the inheritance is related to the kernels somehow, so let’s keep a pace where I can sense them. I need to digest the vision anyway.”

It didn’t take more than a few minutes before they stumbled upon the first kernel. After seeing—or rather sensing—the natural formation, Zac’s inkling grew stronger. He’d already had a strong suspicion the reason for his connection to the kernels was his bloodline. The kernels contained Dao but were surrounded by Void, which completely canceled their energy fluctuations.

There were still some pieces missing, though. For instance, he couldn’t sense anything akin to his Void Energy from the kernels or formations. That ancient aura was completely missing, though that specific feeling might be related to his bloodline rather than the Void itself. Knowing the Fate Kernels were related to the Void didn’t help him much. It didn’t provide him any method to scan larger regions using his Void Energy or any clues to the location of the inheritance.

The two continued on their way, and it soon became apparent why the riverbeds were called a hotspot. They couldn’t walk more than a few minutes before Zac sensed a kernel nearby. Not much later, Zac confirmed he could tell the difference between Low-quality and better kernels. An inconspicuous patch of dried clay caught their eye, and Zac extracted a silver hairpin shuddering with power.

“Damn, close,” Ogras muttered as he looked at the kernel with interest. “Middle-quality Dao of the Spear. Let me have a look at it.”

Zac threw the hairpin over to Ogras, who played with the kernel. Just 200 meters away, Zac found another Low-quality kernel, but he didn’t even bother extracting it. It was proof of how many kernels were hidden in the river and how bad the efficiency of the conventional methods was. Most cultivators could spend a day turning a whole riverbed upside down only to find a dozen kernels.

Interestingly enough, they’d found that Ogras couldn’t extract most of the Fate Kernels Zac found. The moment the demon touched the hidden formation, it disappeared. He managed to take out three kernels, though, so it wasn’t an absolute rule. They tried figuring out if it had any bearing on the vision of the First People and their heritage but came up empty-handed.

Suddenly, the surroundings exploded with color, and a frantic series of images passed Zac’s eyes. The images were abstract and incredibly complex, and Zac almost felt his head swell from having them crammed into his head. A moment later, they were gone, just leaving a headache behind.

Zac grunted and shook his head. “Ow.”

“You okay?” Ogras asked.

“Saw something,” Zac muttered before trying to explain what he’d seen.

“Weird,” Ogras said. “Might be a clue?”

“Let’s look around,” Zac agreed.

After three hours of scouring the area, the two were forced to give up and keep going. There was nothing special about that region except for an elevated concentration of Fate Kernels. They even mapped out where they found the kernels, hoping they were part of a bigger whole, but that didn’t lead anywhere either. Then came another flash of images.

A whole day passed this way, between searching for clues while Zac was beset by increasingly powerful bursts of visions. Zac’s head was a throbbing mess. Like his thoughts were overwhelmed by a lingering white noise as images of the constellations forced their way back to the surface. It got so bad Zac was forced to speak, or better yet scribble down, his thoughts not to lose them.

And then, it clicked.

“Two sides of a mirror. Dao and Void,” Zac muttered, his eyes gleaming as he spread out his stack of plaques on the ground. “Counterbalance…”

Ogras stood to the side with a frown, gaze turning between the plaques and Zac.

“What do you want to do?” the demon asked. “The lake is just an hour away. Better yet, why don’t we head back to Vastness City for a break? You’re looking a bit… unraveled.”

“No need,” Zac said as he gathered his notes. “I have it.”

“Consumed by the search for truth. I know the feeling,” a snicker echoed out as K’Rav appeared from Ogras’ sleeve.

The goblin curiously looked at the constellations before turning to Zac.

“You remind me of myself when I found the direction for my research. Ah, those were the days.”

“Like you? Well, that’s not good,” Ogras said. “Help me talk some sense into him.”

“Why would I?” the goblin laughed. “Follow the madness, kid. Sometimes you need to plunge into the depths to see the light.”

36

INVERSION

“You hear that? This lunatic is cheering you on,” Ogras sighed, referring to the goblin Tool Spirit. “You have to understand that’s not a good sign.”

“As I’ve said, I’m not going crazy. It’s just those visions overloading my brain,” Zac said. “Let’s go. I want to deal with this before my head explodes. Of course, if you feel this is a waste of time, you can always head back.”

Truthfully, Zac wasn’t sure Ogras had much to gain from a Void-related inheritance. Of course, there was a chance there was more to the gift of the First People. Perhaps there were other treasures apart from Void items and skills. Or techniques that could work with Cosmic Energy. After all, the corpse seemed to have realized which direction the universe was heading. Would they have bothered if he thought the inheritance was useless for such a world?

There was also the matter of the kernels. A huge Void Formation spread across the riverbeds, possibly the whole Quarry. Most likely, it was related to their formation as well. Where would the best kernels be if not by the inheritance?

“Maybe it’s me who’s going mad,” Ogras muttered, but he still followed Zac as he sped away.

Zac didn’t run toward the lake that was the source of all the rivers—it wasn’t the true core. He finally realized what was going on. The rivers didn’t look like a pattern at first glance, but that was because it wasn’t the whole picture. The riverbeds were the Dao, and the Void of Dao hid beneath, like two sides of a coin.

Superimpose the environment with the right constellation, and they formed a whole. The theory was shockingly similar to the blueprint with his Cosmic Core, to the point Zac was almost a bit annoyed. Would he have saved himself all that effort in secluded cultivation if he’d come here a few years earlier?

No, it wasn’t as simple as that. Seeing something and understanding something was different. If he just came here and stumbled upon these arrays, he’d just be copying someone else’s homework. His method had cost him a few years, but he far-better understood his path as a result. Besides, there were no guarantees he’d ever realize what was going on if not for his research.

Zac had no idea what the enormous pattern meant, but he could tell where the center lay. The lake was one of two main eyes. The second eye hid on the other side of the riverbeds. Right between the two was the widest river, and Zac knew the answer was there.

It only took two hours to reach their destination since they’d ceased searching for answers or kernels. They encountered two groups of cultivators on their way, including the cultivator searching with earthquakes. They only exchanged some information before moving on, continuing until they reached their destination.

Zac walked around, trying to feel something, anything, from the river. Ogras closed his eyes and kept them that way for over a minute until he opened them again.

“Nothing underground, even a hundred meters down,” the demon said. “Almost pure bedrock. You sure this is the place?”

Zac barely heard him over the white noise filling his mind, but he nodded affirmatively. “This is it. It’s the heart of one of the revolutions. I can feel it.”

“Whatever you say,” Ogras said, though Zac noted the demon’s skepticism and concern even in his muddled state.

Zac didn’t bother. The best way to prove he wasn’t going mad and getting the demon back on board was to find the inheritance.

“There,” Zac said and turned to an empty spot that hid a natural formation.

It was the same as the others, yet it wasn’t. It was the opposite. The Fate Kernels were Dao hidden by Void. This isolated spot was rather Void hidden by Dao. It didn’t sound like a big deal, but Zac knew it was. This was Void brought to the Main Dimension, kept stable in defiance of the Heavens. It should have been consumed and nullified by the ambient Dao and Cosmic Energy, yet it somehow formed a perfect camouflage.

Perfect against anyone not attuned to the Void.

He stretched out his hand, but it passed right through. Zac frowned for a second before releasing some Void Energy around his hand and trying again. This time it worked, and space rippled similarly to when he picked Fate Kernels.

“What is it? A clue? A pathway?” Ogras eagerly asked. “Is it—wait, is that what I think it is?”

Zac had already found what he was looking for and pulled out his hand. It was a small glowing orb resembling stardust. It emitted a weak fluctuation of the Dao of Stars. And nothing else.

“A Low-quality kernel?” Ogras said, his eyes slowly turning to Zac. “Dao of Stars? That’s it?”

Zac didn’t immediately answer. His eyes were glued to the Fate Kernel, or rather what masqueraded as one. It emitted the same energy as a normal kernel, but it was just an outer layer hiding the truth. Its core was made up of Aether—Void Energy. An ancient seed full of possibility.

But it was too small and too weak. It wasn’t enough to carry the weight of that constellation or the gift of the First People. There had to be more. Zac muttered to himself for a minute, ignoring Ogras’ stare as he tried to understand what he needed to do.

Only after a while did he realize that the pressure in his head was gone, and he could hear himself think. With his faculties finally returned to him, Zac realized something. Why the Dao of Stars? Why this specific hotspot? If there was a Void Kernel here, why not in the others?

“Those dry veins, how many are there?” Zac asked.

“Ah? The dry veins?” Ogras said, his brows furrowing. “There’s seven marked on the map I bought, but there may be more. Why?”

“Thrones and seals, balance and counterbalance,” Zac whispered.

“Buddy, you need to calm down and get some perspective. Your eyes have been looking a bit like the fifth elder back home. He had a deviation and suddenly became obsessed with a mountain on our planet, a mountain on a competing clan’s lands. He believed his Dao hid inside. One day, he snuck out and murdered a whole village on the mountain slopes, convinced they hid the key to his breakthrough.

“Of course, there was no key, and his antics created a huge incident until he was eventually executed.”

“I’m fine. The disturbances stopped the moment I extracted this thing,” Zac said, his eyes not leaving the Void Kernel. “I now know what keeps these things hidden and why I can sense them. I also know this one is different, masquerading as something it’s not. It’s a key, a part of the puzzle.”

Time was running out. The outer layer of Dao wouldn’t be able to protect the inner layer for much longer. It would crack, and the Void would be washed away by the Dao in the environment. At the same time, it was just one of many. There had to be more nuclei waiting for him in the other hotspots and dried veins. It was the only thing that made sense.

There was only one thing he could do.

“Just wait!” Ogras urged as Zac moved the shimmering ball toward his chest, looking at the kernel like it was poison. “Think this through!”

“I have,” Zac said. “This is it. This is the solution.”

“If the answer is to imbue that shitty kernel, then the question is wrong!” Ogras shouted. “That thing will absolutely obstruct your Core Formation.”

“You might be right, but it’s the only way,” Zac said as he pushed the orb into his body, where it would find sanctuary.

The Dao of Stars melted away when it entered his body, leaving a small illusory rune. It flickered precariously, then stabilized when Zac extracted some Void Energy from his cells. The rune immediately became a glutton, forcibly extracting over 10% of Zac’s Void Energy stores. And as it consumed, so did it grow. It unfurled like a flower, displaying thousands of unfamiliar patterns that together formed a complex seal no larger than a button.

Zac expectantly looked on, waiting for some sort of impartment to take place. A burst of information, new visions, or perhaps even the appearance of a teleportation device. But his excited smile turned crooked as the rune made a quick circuit through his pathways before settling in his left leg. It shuddered, and Zac found his soul suppressed and his Cosmic Energy sluggish. Altogether, his strength had been restrained by almost 10%.

“Uh…”

“Ai,” Ogras said, clearly sensing the changes to Zac’s aura. “You’re in it now.”

Zac waited for the rune to settle, trying to understand its meaning. But it was like an eldritch onion, layers and layers of incomprehensible patterns. His [Primal Polyglot] was utterly incapable of making heads or tails of the unfamiliar scripts or the proto-fractals that made up its inner workings. His work on his blueprint didn’t help him any, either. The script only sparked a vague recollection connecting it with the vision, but that was it.

“Let’s continue,” Zac said.

“Continue what? Crippling yourself?” Ogras grumbled.

“Nine by eight,” Zac said. “Seventeen keys will open the inheritance.”

“You’re going to absorb seventeen garbage kernels?” Ogras said, looking at Zac like he was a lunatic. “Let alone seventeen, just two is dangerous. Haven’t you heard what happens when you absorb two Fate Kernels? They’ll clash, ruining both while damaging your foundations.”

“Except it wasn’t a Fate Kernel,” Zac said.

“Sure looked like one,” Ogras countered, prompting Zac to give the demon an even stare. “Alright, alright. You’re not deranged—you just acted like you were. I guess it’s fine. With your weird body, so what if you eat a couple of kernels? I bet you’ll digest them and walk away with a Dao Epiphany.”

“That’s the spirit,” Zac smiled as he took a deep breath. “Let’s finish this off quickly; it’s not a great feeling carrying this thing in my body.”

“Who could have known?”

It didn’t take long to plot a path between the hotspots and dry veins. There didn’t seem to be a particular order that needed to be followed, so they’d move in a large circle around the teleportation pillar. And with eight hotspots and seven dry veins already marked on the map, it wasn’t too difficult to infer the final spots with the help of the constellations. Altogether, it would take around ten days to visit the sixteen locations, depending on how difficult it was to figure out the locations of the Void Kernels.

They headed west toward a sweltering swamp. It wasn’t a hotspot but rather one of the dry veins. Zac was greeted by a series of confusing flashes when he set foot on the region. The pain returned, but Zac was invigorated by it. The vision confirmed his theory was likely correct, and the two spent a few hours mapping out the area. Zac soon found which constellation the patches of land of the swamp matched.

Two hours later, he emerged from the murky waters, covered in grime but smiling. In his hand, there was a small pebble. It was another Void Kernel masquerading as a normal one, this one covered in a sheen of Dao of Water. The noise in his mind had grown deafening once more, so he wasted no time as he absorbed the kernel into his body.

The process repeated itself, and a second seal soon stabilized in his left arm. The two seals formed a mysterious resonance that Zac couldn’t quite understand. It was like they were strengthening each other. In addition, his strength had been further sealed. By this point, he probably wouldn’t have won the battle against the Earth cultivators without risking everything.

“You’re alive?” Ogras said after Zac opened his eyes.

“Why do you look so surprised?” Zac snorted.

“Well, you can’t blame me. You’ve been playing it fast and loose.”

“So you’ll stop your bellyaching and just help now?”

“Sure,” the demon grinned. “If the only price I have to pay for access to an inheritance is you getting weaker, then I’m game.”

The days passed, and they picked up one Void Kernel after another. In return, Zac’s aura weakened as the seals amassed in his body. By the time Zac absorbed five, his aura was on the weaker side of the guests. By the time they’d gathered ten, Zac looked like someone that had just recently entered the E-grade. His movement speed was so slow that Ogras had to carry him around, and the two started to keep watch for guests.

His energy-hiding bracelet and robe hid his weakened state, but no disguise was perfect, and they didn’t need the hassle. This was a Green Zone, and Zac could sacrifice some Mana to surrender, but it was better if they dealt with this inheritance before that. Luckily, they didn’t spot too many people, partly because of the mission release and partly because they spent half their time in dry veins.

Eventually, they approached the final piece of the puzzle. Zac’s energy was all-but-gone, and he felt almost as weak as after winning that lucky roll all those years ago. However, his body was still that of a powerful Peak E-grade cultivator. His cells screamed for sustenance, but the Void Kernels had everything on lockdown. Unless something changed, he’d likely die from energy starvation in a few weeks.

Ogras realized the issue and kept a frantic pace toward the final location. Ogras was already familiar with the process, and Zac had a detailed sketch of the area and energy flows before he’d even taken out all the plaques. And then they found it. The last region was a dry vein somewhat close to the exit, where a complex series of mountains and crags made up the formation. The final Void Sphere hid within a withered tree in a secluded valley just ahead, but Zac didn’t immediately get it.

“Wait, go get Catheya,” Zac said in a weak voice.

“Are you crazy? A gust will knock you over!” Ogras said. “It’d take me almost two days to head to Vastness City and return with her.”

“Still,” Zac said. “If this is the final key to an ancient inheritance, then she should be here.”

“Fine! Fine, dammit,” Ogras swore. “But if you start seeing a white light at the end of the tunnel, ignore us and get that final piece.”

“Sure,” Zac smiled.

Ogras dug out a hidden cave, grumbling while setting up a series of defensive and illusion arrays before bolstering them with his Daos.

“Dou have something that can kill an interloper?” Ogras asked.

“I got Vivi, Alea, and a whole pile of bombs,” Zac said.

In addition, he had his Void Energy. Most of it was siphoned off by the seals, but he had enough to launch a few furious attacks that should be able to kill most people in the Perennial Vastness.

“Try to sit tight,” Ogras said. “Though knowing you, I’m fully expecting a calamity when I return.”

“Go, go,” Zac waved before closing his eyes.

The demon disappeared in a puff of shadows, allowing Zac to focus on withstanding the seals. It was hard to find center when his whole body was constantly screaming for sustenance, and his soul was pressured to the point the two spirals had essentially been forced to a halt. There was nothing to do but wait. He’d tried everything over the past week, but nothing worked. The only thing that helped was absorbing Void Cores and Void Stones, which replenished the small but constant drain on his Void Energy.

He tried to make time pass faster by studying the sixteen seals and committing them to memory. He wasn’t making any headway at all, but that was fine. Down the road, the memories might jog something loose and spark an epiphany. Eventually, exhaustion overcame him to the point his concentration failed him. His empowered soul and solidified heart were utterly unable to deal with the mysterious resonance of the seals, and Zac was essentially reduced to just trying to stay awake.

“Zac? A-Are you okay?” a worried shout dragged Zac’s thoughts to the surface, and he opened two tired eyes to see Catheya standing in front of him.

“You made it.” Zac smiled, his voice but a weak whisper.

“You!” Catheya glared at Ogras. “You said some of his strength was restrained! How did you let him get like this? What’s wrong with you?”

“You try to stop him when he gets an idea in his head,” Ogras said with a helpless wave.

“Useless!” Catheya spat before turning back to Zac. “What do we do? His aura is almost completely—”

“I’m fine,” Zac said, barely managing to stand up.

The two days had passed in a flash, but the passage of time had weakened him even further. A pang of hesitation filled his heart, but he pushed it away. There was no turning back now. He was right at the finish line.

“Sorry about interrupting your cultivation. I asked Ogras to call you here in case an opportunity appeared.”

“Opportunity? You look like you’re about to embrace the eternal slumber. We need you to get back to one of the healing environments.”

“No point. He’s already swallowed sixteen kernels,” Ogras interjected, getting another nasty look.

“He’s right,” Zac said as he took a couple of stumbling steps toward the exit of his hastily made cave. “More importantly, get ready.”

“Ready for what?” Catheya asked.

“Not sure, but I think I will either summon something or open a path when I take on the seventeenth piece,” Zac said. “Be careful. Whatever happens, it might be teeming with dangerous energies. Just stay back if you don’t feel confident.”

“Now you know how to be careful?” Catheya sighed as she led Zac out of the hidden cave. “Fine. We’ll do what we can to assist you.”

They approached the withered tree, and Zac extracted the final Void Kernel. It was a pitch-black gemstone filled with the power of Gravity, representing the final Dao Peak. Zac took a steadying breath as he pushed the gem into his body, beginning the process one final time. Zac’s vision swam from having the last vestiges of his strength siphoned from his body, and his consciousness slipped.

A thunderous crash shocked Zac wide awake, and his gaze turned to the sky with shock. The warm glow of the Quarry’s perpetual sunset was ripped apart, replaced by a swirling darkness that stretched beyond the horizon. Zac felt like he was looking at an ancient sky. A sky from before Earth, before the System. Before the Dao. The vortex drowned out everything, its movement releasing a deep hum that Zac could feel to the depths of his soul.

One by one, thin pillars of light shot up toward the sky. At first, there were just a few, but in seconds there were millions. They rose from every corner of the Quarry, seemingly supporting the Heavens. All the while, the resonance within Zac’s body surged toward a crescendo Zac both anticipated and feared.

Ogras looked at the spectacle with a crooked smile. “That’s the Deviant Asura for you.”

37

THE GIFT OF THE FIRST PEOPLE

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Lova commented as they looked down at the children.

He’d just absorbed the last of the keys, which would trigger the summoning. A powerful force was building within his body, but it wasn’t enough to obscure the raging storm of Fate around the child. It was shielded using some unconventional means, but the obfuscation wouldn’t work properly, what with their master being the Heavens in this realm.

“So what?” Engo grinned, his gaze turning to the sky. “Inserting myself into the tapestry didn’t harm the child. He’ll still get his opportunity. Isn’t this why we’ve stayed in this world for so long, overseeing generation after generation? To find inspiration in the paths of the little animals, to benefit from their winds of fate?”

“Those winds might become a storm powerful enough to swallow you whole.”

“That’s fine. I’ve lived long enough,” Engo said without a care. “We both know I won’t go any further unless something changes, and I’m tired of searching one forsaken corner of the Multiverse after another. I’m just trying a few things out. Besides, aren’t you the same? I’m guessing you’re here because of that old thief.”

“Esmeralda is interested,” Lova admitted. “I wasn’t sure whether he was suitable for this inheritance, so I thought I’d come and make sure he didn’t get himself killed. Since he survived the inverse keys, I’ll be on my way.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

“Of the First People?” Lova smiled. “Not particularly. I’ve already read their primer.”

“Don’t you want to know what this trove’s holding? Not even master knows which tier this parcel is.”

“Even if it’s one of the Ancestral Precepts, so what? Their path is not something we can emulate. Well, not you and I, at least. As for him, who knows? Theirs was a path of purity, while he chose to embrace the Dao.”

“You’re too pessimistic. Great things have emerged from the most unexpected places through the ages. Who’s to say what can and can’t crystallize from the teachings of the First People? If we can make the heritages of the previous Heavens work in our favor, why not a heritage of the Void Heaven? For all we know, some might already have succeeded.”

“Even then…” Lova smiled as a gate appeared next to her. “That’s a path for someone else to trod.”

“Boring,” Engo scoffed as he pushed down his cane.

A ripple spread beneath his feet like they were standing upon a lake rather than far up in the sky. A second avatar of the old Kan’Zek Troll rose from within, and it didn’t emit a speck of energy. Instead, it was completely detached from the environment, as though its body lived in its own dimension.

“A Blank Phase Avatar? You’ve come prepared,” Lova said.

“I’ll follow these threads of Karma to see what’s what,” Engo said as he wove a weave of arrays around the avatar. “Don’t worry, I won’t disturb your little candidate.”

“Well, have fun,” Lova said as she stepped through the gate. “Though I must say, those threads look an awful lot like a noose.”

The mountains rumbled and the ground shook as the ancient sky grew more potent. Seeing the innumerable pillars light up the Quarry, Zac suspected it came at the cost of most, if not all, the Fate Kernels. The First People were calling the Aether back home, which would break the containment.

Zac had no time to worry about him ruining yet another environment because of the transformation taking place in his own body. Torrential amounts of Void Energy were dragged out of the depths of his cells, fueling the seventeen seals. They were finally satiated when only 10% of his stores remained. Together, they formed a full circuit, creating a simplified copy of something he’d seen in his vision.

It was the fifteenth iteration of the lone constellation. Zac didn’t know if that was good, bad, or if it mattered at all. All the stars had looked the same in the vision, none clearly better or worse than the others. He was more curious about what the seals would do than what the constellation meant.

He didn’t have to wait long for answers. The seventeen seals hummed with increasing vigor, releasing an ancient aura that spread through every corner of his body. Then they simply disappeared in a flash, and Zac gasped in relief as he felt his strength come surging back. His parched cells were flushed with Vigor after two weeks of steadily withering. Part of him wanted to destroy a mountain with [Arcadia’s Judgement] just to completely rid himself of the uncomfortable sensation of vulnerability since he started collecting the Void Kernels, but he pushed down the sentiment.

The seals didn’t completely disappear after leaving his body. They’d appeared right above his head in the form of stars, miniature versions of the ones he’d seen in the vision. They pulsated, following a mysterious pattern, and a rain of light answered the call. The light pillars across the horizon had already winked out, drained by the vortex above. Now it all came back, pouring into the seals.

Zac’s vision flickered, and he realized there were no longer seventeen stars illuminating the valley. There were twenty-four, then thirty-three, and new ones kept appearing out of nowhere. In seconds, the valley was covered by a true replica of the fifteenth constellation, a full 229 stars. The constellation hung hundreds of meters in the air, though Zac felt far closer to it than when he’d carried the seals around.

The powerful resonance lingered in his body, forming a mysterious connection with the stars. And the stars, in turn, linked him with the Heavens themselves. An instinctual understanding filled his mind as his vantage expanded to the size of a world. A smile spread across his lips.

“How long do you think this… thing will last?” Ogras whispered. “People are undoubtedly already running here as fast as their legs can carry them.”

He was right. Zac could see it. There were twenty-two other cultivators spread throughout the Quarry. Two were trying to gain some benefits from the scene in the sky or investigate the spots where the pillars appeared. The others were all running toward their location using every means in their repertoire, including teleportation talismans, treasures, and all kinds of movement skills.

“They won’t get here in time,” Zac said. “And it won’t matter.”

“More importantly, are you okay?” Catheya asked. “It almost felt like you died there for a moment.”

“I’m fine now,” Zac said and released his aura to show he was no longer toiling under the restraints of the seventeen seals.

“What do we do?” Ogras asked. “Where’s this inheritance?”

“It’s wherever I want it to be,” Zac said and pointed ahead.

The constellation answered his call, and its light rapidly increased with intensity. For a moment, he felt like a powerful Autarch, wielding the power of the cosmos. The sky roiled, and a rumble originating from the beginnings of the era shook the world. And then it appeared—a finger whose size was beyond comprehension.

It barely fit through the vortex, covering the whole land beneath.

“Holy…” Ogras whispered as he hunched down, unable to fully withstand the mental pressure of seeing something that big descend toward him.

Zac also gazed at the unfathomable finger but didn’t feel the pressure. He felt a longing call coming from the depths of the river of time—the call of the First People, searching for something beyond themselves.

“I’m here,” Zac whispered, stretching his hands to welcome the probing search.

A blinding flash of starlight answered, drowning the whole world in unbearable light. Even Zac was forced to close his eyes and block his sight with energy. There was a light touch on his forehead that subtly changed the resonance from the seals. The light soon receded, and the finger was gone when Zac opened his eyes.

In its place was a pillar of starlight falling toward them. It looked minuscule compared to the finger, but it was over five hundred meters across. It had emerged from the vortex’s center and passed through the constellation still glimmering above. With a flash, the mountain lining the valley was gone.

In its place stood an ancient stone building. It shared a lot of features with the ancient library he’d seen in his vision, but its design was completely different. It was circular, almost resembling a cauldron, lined with hundreds of engraved pillars. Between each pillar was a burning brazier, except the fires looked like thousands of blue fireflies dancing around.

There was one entrance pointed right at them, but Zac couldn’t see anything through the open gates. The only clue of what went on inside was a huge star floating in the middle of the building, with roughly a third of it peeking above the outer wall. The star wasn’t a ball of fire but looked like a condensed ball of the mysterious light in the braziers.

There were two more items of note, each placed in front of the entrance. To the left of the gate was a larger version of the braziers. To the right was a stone tablet reaching over ten meters. Both were covered in the script of the First People. Even if Zac couldn’t understand them, he felt his mind shudder as he looked at the pattern. Dao or not, those things contained incredible truths.

A shimmering bubble surrounded the whole structure, and Zac could tell it was a lot like the arrays surrounding the Fate Kernels. Only infinitely more powerful.

“What was that?” Catheya asked as she fearfully looked around. “What’s going on?”

Zac wasn’t surprised by their hesitant reaction. He could tell that the bubble was not just a shield to protect the building from the Dao and Energy outside. It was more accurate to say that it had created a completely separate dimension superimposed on the mountain range. Catheya was looking upon the same mountains as before rather than the inheritance building.

“Here, let me show you,” Zac said as he placed his hand on Ogras and Catheya’s shoulders.

The mysterious vibrations in his body spread into Ogras and Catheya, and they gasped simultaneously.

“What the…!” Ogras exclaimed. “Is it an illusion?”

“No,” Zac said with a shake of his head. “It’s not quite in phase with our reality, and the seventeen seals created a resonance that has temporarily attuned me to the library. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be able to take you inside. The energy will annihilate you.”

“Figures,” Ogras muttered, but he didn’t look overly surprised. But the demon’s eyes suddenly widened as he looked at the large brazier by the entrance. “Wait, is that…?”

Zac followed Ogras’ gaze, and he realized there was something different about it from the others. In its center were a dozen shimmering spheres, each the size of an ostrich egg.

“They resemble Fate Kernels, but at the same time, they don’t,” Ogras hesitated. “I can’t sense any Dao from within them. Are they broken?”

“I think they’re just empty,” Zac said, his eyes lighting up. It looked like his companions wouldn’t walk away completely empty-handed. “Stay here. I shouldn’t be long.”

“Be careful!” Catheya urged as Zac moved forward.

Zac nodded, but he wasn’t too worried. He already felt connected to the building, and each step he took imparted new information. Zac passed through the barrier without issue and found himself standing on the temple’s steps. Everything felt normal. The stones were stones, and the air was air. He couldn’t feel the Dao at all, but that didn’t mean there weren’t truths swirling across the temple.

The star radiated… Something. Something incredible, something alien. Was it a Void of Dao, such as the Void of Stars? Zac wasn’t certain. He shook his head and turned to the brazier. There’d be time to figure out the mysteries within soon enough. Zac wanted to fish out two Fate Kernels for the others, and a burst of information filled his head when he touched the brazier.

A wry smile spread across Zac’s face as he hefted two handles. “Oh well.”

The First People were more generous than Zac, and a message had asked him to take the brazier and pillar for all fated to enjoy. Zac would personally have opted to keep them for himself or ransom them out to anyone who arrived, but he chose to follow the message. It wasn’t a command, but who knew if some lingering spirit was watching his actions.

Zac first carried the brazier out from the barrier and then the tablet. Both were covered in shimmering light, though Zac could tell they’d only last a day before disintegrating.

“You took them out?” Ogras said with surprise.

“I got a message asking me to.” Zac shrugged as he stuck his hand into the fire and fished out two eggs. “Here. Don’t touch the pillar, or you’ll lose a hand, but you could try getting something from it. This fire is also pretty dangerous for normal people, so don’t play around with it.”

“What should we do with these?” Catheya asked.

“Infuse them with all your Daos according to your path.”

They quickly got to work. The spheres rapidly transformed under the influence of the Dao. Catheya’s egg turned into a crystalline necklace, while Ogras’ turned into a weird three-eyed puppet the size of a fist. Each emitted an aura completely in sync with them, and the energy they contained was amazing.

“Peak? No, this is even—” Ogras breathed.

Zac could tell these Fate Kernels couldn’t be categorized as Peak or even Supreme-quality. They were something unique, and their effect might not be as simple as just boosting the efficacy by a certain percentage.

“These are amazing,” Catheya whispered. “What about you?”

“I’m taking one just in case,” Zac said, though he wasn’t sure if even these things were useful to him.

“What about the others? Should we try to sell them?” Ogras asked.

“The one who left the inheritance asked these to be provided to whoever was fated. And they won’t last long outside the protective fire,” Zac said, not without reluctance. “Uh, but they didn’t say anything about selling information.”

“Got it,” Ogras grinned. “I’ll deal with it.”

“What about you?” Catheya asked.

“I’m heading inside,” Zac said. “These things will disappear in a day or so. No need to wait for me if I’m not out by then. I have no idea how long this will take.”

“We’ll stay in the area in case you need our help later,” Catheya said before grabbing Zac’s hand. “Thank you, and be careful.”

“Don’t listen to her. Take some risks and find something good for me in there,” Ogras said, narrowly avoiding an icicle shooting in his direction. “What? Just look at him. The worst that can happen is him tripping and falling into a hidden treasure room.”

Zac laughed as he walked back toward the temple. “Remember, if some lunatic arrives, call for me, and I’ll try to come.”

A moment later, he was back on the steps and eagerly entered the gates. Zac’s vision shuddered as he passed the threshold, and the floating star was now in full view. It hovered five meters above the ground. Surrounding it were seventeen floating disks, each with a distinct rune pointing toward the sun’s center. They looked different, but they reminded Zac of the Dao Spikes he’d seen in the center of the Technocrat Research Base.

As far as Zac could tell, they were there to empower rather than restrain the sun, which seemed to be wholly self-contained. Apart from the sun, there was not much else inside the massive structure. There was a second set of pillars and braziers mirroring those outside, along with a simple table right beneath the sun.

Zac hesitated a bit before approaching. The sun drew closer, but no heat emanated from it. Zac breathed in relief at not having to withstand the searing heat of an ancient sun. This close, he got a better look at the fireflies flying about and crashing into each other. It looked chaotic, but it seemed like there was order to the madness.

There was a mystery within, but Zac’s attention soon shifted to the table. Only three things were lying atop it: a crystal, a tome, and in the middle, a tool with a small hammerhead on one side and a pick on the other. Curious, Zac’s eyes turned to the hammer. He’d encountered all kinds of tomes and crystals over the years, but this was the first time he’d seen a simple tool given such a prominent placement.

Zac reached out and touched the pick, and the whole sun shuddered as an immense presence descended. Zac heard a distant scream, but it was immediately drowned out by a booming voice reverberating through his body. Each word was like a clap of Heavenly thunder, containing immense will. Each syllable was a hammer hitting an anvil, steady and powerful.

“Master the myriad transformations! Subdue the elements and bend them to your will! Make the Cosmos your forge!”

38

COSMIC FORGE

The firefly sun turned into a storm that engulfed the whole building, even dragging the flames out of the braziers by the walls. Zac stood in its center, pick hammer in hand as he looked around with wonder. The billions of fireflies created dazzling patterns that kept changing in incredibly complex ways. Just like he’d sensed before, there were truths hidden in their movements.

An impartment.

As the fireflies danced, a seal started to appear inside his Soul Aperture. It formed a hidden chamber much like the Remnant prison, likely invisible to any outsider. And as the seal appeared, Zac felt his vision split in two. He was looking at the dance around him, yet he was also witnessing a completely different scene—a different life, even.

He stood in an unfamiliar, yet familiar room with piles of materials on the floor. Zac took up a piece of glowing rock, and a swirl of fireflies began dancing around his hand. One by one, small seals appeared on the stone, written in the script of the First People. The stone cracked, and he sighed in despondency. A warm consciousness buffeted him, and the crude scripts detached themselves from the rock and flowed into the air.

They formed a simple dance above Zac’s hand in the alternate reality, mirroring the vastly more complex patterns around him. They showed him the true path and the mistakes he’d made. Zac retrieved a second stone and began anew.

One scene after another appeared in Zac’s mind’s eye. Years of practice crystallizing into an experienced hand’s intuition. It truly felt like it was him experiencing all these experiments. His attempts were based on his understanding and his failures because of his shortcomings. So every time that gentle consciousness showed the way, he gained true skill and comprehension.

Zac lost all concept of time. He was fully committed and entranced by the magical technique. All the while, the firefly sun shrunk, and the seal grew. The motes of light weren’t expended, though, but rather absorbed by the small stone pick.

Eventually, only a few thousand motes remained, at which point Zac had lived through decades of apprenticeship under a master artisan. Thousands of trials and errors had given him an instinctive understanding of materials and energy. It was a form of information impartment he hadn’t encountered before, akin to flowers naturally blooming rather than having things forcibly crammed into his brain. Of course, it couldn’t compare to real, hands-on experience. However, he had likely saved years on his journey, and the vision ensured he wouldn’t set off on the wrong path.

The remaining starlight formed a small swirl in front of him that turned into a bust of a face of a member of the First People. They looked like a mix of an herbivore dinosaur and a humanoid, with two large black eyes but no nose or ears. Instead of hair, they had back-facing horn-like formations that resembled flower petals. Over twenty of them formed a flower at the back of his head.

The bust was decidedly alien, but Zac got a warm feeling. He’d never seen this man in the visions, but he could tell it was this man who had guided him through his spiritual apprenticeship.

“I am Dasorm, a Cosmic Pathfinder of the First People,” the bust said. “Fate brought you to my forge, and I gift you my creation with no expectation beyond remembering my name. I was not the most powerful of my kin nor the brightest. Neither did I ever cross that final threshold and join the six ancestors.”

Zac’s heart shuddered when he heard the voice. It was the same as the booming voice that spoke when he touched the stone pick, but it was gentler this time. Like the voice of a patient teacher who’d guided him for a large part of his life. His emotions swelled, but he focused to avoid missing anything the long gone craftsman had to say. Zac could tell this was a recording rather than a lingering spiritual will, and this was likely the first and last time Zac would see his benefactor.

There were a few things he could deduce from that short introduction. First, this wasn’t one of the peak inheritances left by one of the six gargantuan beings Zac suspected were Supremacies. However, it was still not far-off. Dasorm was only one step below those six, which meant he had to have been one of the top beings in the innermost circles.

Then again, that was probably the case with all the 229 inheritances. There had been millions and millions of cultivators on that platform, but only a few of their creations could become a star heritage.

Dasorm continued. “I was, however, the only Cosmic Pathfinder to ever forge an Ancestral Instrument.”

As expected, Zac was amazed but not surprised. Even if he’d only experienced the basic techniques of this master artisan, he could tell Dasorm’s methods were unique. Almost Heaven-defying. Since the highest-grade cultivators were called ancestors, it was a safe bet that an Ancestral Instrument was something at a similar level.

He took a ragged breath in anticipation, his heart rapidly beating. Zac had been so swept up in that vision that he hadn’t fully grasped what he’d been given. A Void-based crafting method, possibly the greatest one of the First People.

Wasn’t this perfect? If it had been a cultivation-based heritage, it would probably have been useless except as a reference source. Even if it turned out he could cultivate the Void, he still had his own path to follow. But this? This was amazing. As for the fact it was created in a time without the Dao, Zac wasn’t worried. Most people would probably have to refit the technique, but Zac strongly suspected he was an exception.

He’d long since realized there was something special with his relationship to the Void, and the vision of the First People had essentially confirmed it. They’d called the Dao poison, and just touching it was like matter and anti-matter colliding. That wasn’t Zac’s experience at all. He found no issues activating skills with Void Energy, even if they were based on the Dao.

Zac could even imbue the skills with his Dao Branches, which should be downright impossible. His bloodline made the impossible possible, acting as a bridge between the Void and Dao. This was the true marvel of his bloodline, rather than instant skill activation or having an extra energy reserve.

“My creation is called [Cosmic Forge]. No matter your path, no matter the material. Everything can be refined by the Cosmos! At the highest level, the Cosmos itself can be refined. I wish you luck, inheritor!”

With those parting words, the final motes of light entered the pick. The floating seals had disappeared at some time and turned into small sigils that lined the handle.

Zac felt a tremendous pull of Void Energy when the final mote of starlight was gone. Luckily, he’d been fully replenished by the unique environment while undergoing the impartment, and he let the pick eat its fill. The pick was like a black hole, and Zac was eventually forced to stop it when he only had 20% of his Void Energy remaining.

At least it was enough to form a preliminary connection to the tool, though Zac wasn’t sure if the hammer could be considered a Spirit Tool. He could tell it followed a completely different path. Zac did sense a connection to the tool like he did with Verun and Alea. His lips twitched—it had only absorbed less than a tenth of a percent of what it required.

Holding the hammer up, he knew what to do. The hammer had to first be filled with Void Energy to recover. The whole inheritance had almost been drained for eons, and it would have been unable to withstand the Heavens for much longer. After the hammer was replenished, Zac would have to infuse Daos from all seventeen peaks into the tool. By that point, it would be fully stabilized.

Until then, it would be damaged when exposed to the environment. It would be a lot of work, but Zac was confident he’d be able to repair the hammer before leaving the Perennial Vastness. He could even do it while earning Mana in the various Red Zones. Seventeen Missions, seventeen months. That would take him through environments based on all the Dao Peaks. It would provide him the treasures he needed and valuable experience dealing with Daos uncommon in Zecia.

The impartment building felt hollow and empty with the sun gone and the braziers extinguished. Zac sent a command, and the hammer turned into light that entered his Soul Aperture and then the new hidden compartment that had opened. There, it reformed into a miniature version of the firefly sun and began orbiting the new brand that appeared.

Zac spent the next thirty minutes scanning the sigil, even if the vast majority of the technique was still sealed. The section he could access by infusing his will only covered the concepts displayed in the visions. It was the first chapter, which Dasorm Called [Cosmic Infusion]. It wasn’t a method to craft gear, though.

[Cosmic Infusion] contained two techniques. The first was to extract Truth and Aether from a base material. The second technique was to infuse the unique energy into a piece of gear.

For example, he could take a Life-attuned Natural Treasure and extract its essence before infusing it into a normal dagger. With enough essence, the dagger would turn into a Life-attuned weapon. Not only that, but by accepting more energy, its quality would slightly improve.

According to the method, there didn’t seem to be a limit to how much essence you could infuse into an item. Of course, the worse the base item, the more demanding the process. Stacking infusions also increased the difficulty. Still, this seemingly simple solution would probably drive most blacksmiths mad with envy.

Even an apprentice blacksmith could craft a decent weapon if they only focused on tempering and shaping. The real difficulty came when you wanted to infuse Dao. Even unattuned weapons relied on the Dao, from the blacksmith’s comprehension to his technique. These things would impact the product. It was doubly true for attuned weapons, which were far more popular. And attunement was something you had to infuse during the forging process. If you wanted to add an affinity later, your options were limited, and none were optimal.

The first alternative was to reforge the item to add attuned materials, which often was more difficult than crafting a new one. You didn’t only have to retain the old weapon’s spirituality, arrays, and pathways, but also infuse new ones that wouldn’t clash with the old. There was a high risk of damaging the internal wiring, so to speak. Even if you succeeded, there was a high risk of degrading its quality and potential for growth.

The other alternative was only possible with Spirit Tools, and it was to feed the weapons attuned materials as they grew. This was the path Zac had taken with his Spirit Tools, albeit mostly by accident and necessity. However, there were detriments to this path. Every new item swallowed made the internal workings more complex. The risk of mismatching increased, and gear suffered from impurities just like cultivators.

[Love’s Bond] was still fine thanks to the System overseeing the evolutions through the [Divine Investiture Array], though evolving to D-grade would finally exhaust the array he got from the Tower of Eternity. [Verun’s Bite] was a lot worse off in that regard. It had swallowed all kinds of weird things over the years. Unidentified treasures, bones, dragon blood, and pure Dao of Life. Zac would sooner or later have to slow down its progress and focus on harmonizing and purifying the weapon.

With [Cosmic Infusion], you sidestepped most of the downsides of both method. You only extracted the essence of the raw materials, so there were no impurities to speak of. And the infusion process could almost be likened to a rebirth of the material. As long as you succeeded with the infusion, whether it was the first or the fiftieth, it would result in a homogenous item with little to no internal conflicts. In other words, a Spirit Tool as perfect as one created by the System itself.

The biggest downside was that [Cosmic Infusion] could only create single-affinity items on its own. Luckily, the inheritance hinted that wouldn’t always be the case. The first chapter was completely unlocked, and it also provided a preview of the next one. It was a companion technique to the first called [Cosmic Extraction].

The details were vague, but it sounded like Zac would be able to extract clashing or unsuitable elements from equipment. For example, if Ogras found an amazing spear attuned with Shadows and Death, then Zac could remove the Dao of Death while keeping the rest intact. Beyond that, Zac had no idea what kind of techniques [Cosmic Forge] held. However, things like fusion and alteration were likely candidates.

Interestingly, there was not a single mention of actually forging equipment in the available information. It all referred to improving existing items. In a sense, it was more accurate to call it a refinement technique than a crafting technique. Of course, judging by Dasorm’s introduction, actual crafting techniques would no doubt appear in the later chapters.

It was probably a matter of learning to walk before you could run, where the first chapters set up a solid foundation. It reminded Zac of a documentary he’d seen, explaining how it could take years for a sushi chef apprentice before they were allowed to even touch a sushi knife. First, master how to manipulate “Aether and Truth.” Then you could use that knowledge to forge new creations.

Gaining access to the later chapters wasn’t gated by his cultivation level or finding more inheritances. It was rather dependent on his progress with the method itself. To unlock [Cosmic Extraction], he needed to imbue a piece of equipment with two Cosmic Cycles. Zac had a decent idea of what that meant going by context clues, and the sudden appearance of a blue screen confirmed his suspicion.

Cosmic Forge (Unique, Inheritance): Infuse a non-mortal item with two Cosmic Cycles. Reward: [Cosmic Extraction]. (0/34)

Zac looked at the quest with annoyance. It really wasn’t comfortable having the System all up in his business this way. Still, there wasn’t much to do about it, and he could only focus on the quest. As expected, one Cosmic Cycle was seventeen infusions, one for each Dao Peak.

Neither his visions nor the inheritance fully explained what level an item would reach by being infused seventeen times. But it seemed as though each Cosmic Cycle would upgrade an item by one quality tier. In other words, two cycles would upgrade a Low-quality item to a High-quality one while simultaneously adding an attunement.

That was almost Heaven-defying. [Verun’s Bite] appeared in his hand, and he thought back to all the encounters and opportunities that had fed his axe to this point. All that, and the axe still hadn’t quite reached Peak-quality. It wasn’t easy to make an exact estimate, but it was most likely in the upper tiers of a High-quality Tool Spirit. And that was for now.

There were no guarantees it’d retain its quality after evolving to D-grade. If anything, it was expected for a Tool Spirit to be downgraded a level or two when breaking through to a new grade. Like cultivators, Tool Spirits had limits to their potential, and breaking past those barriers required fortuitous encounters. Sometimes, it simply wasn’t possible.

Or so Zac had thought.

Apparently, [Cosmic Forge] could subvert fate and continuously upgrade equipment. Certainly, it required skill, raw materials, and there was an element of risk to the process, but there were no such things as an item’s bottleneck. As long as he reached a certain level of proficiency, he would be able to turn almost any item into a Peak-quality treasure. Perhaps he would be able to push them to even greater heights.

Zac could see a new path open up before him as he looked down at his companion. Infuse his Daos to elevate the axe to Peak-quality. Extract the clashing elements from all the random things he’d fed Verun. Fuse the essence of his path into the axe, replacing what was removed. Help Verun shatter the chains of its unimpressive origins. Who knew, [Cosmic Forge] might even be the key to helping Alea resurrect.

He took a calming breath, steadying his mental state and heart before his thoughts ran amok. The ability was amazing, but he had to remember it was something created in an era before the Dao by a species that considered Dao poison. There were no guarantees it would work as advertised, even with his unique bloodline.

He definitely wouldn’t dare use the techniques on [Verun’s Bite] or [Love’s Bond] until he had ample experience under his belt. He would prefer to unlock a few more chapters of [Cosmic Forge] to see his options. Still, the gift was almost incomprehensible, and the inheritance was just one of three items left on the table.

There were still two more to go.

39

BEING REMEMBERED

Anticipation radiated through Zac as he picked up the inlaid tome. Unsurprisingly, its pages were filled with the unfamiliar scripts of the First People. Of course, they were no longer unfamiliar, thanks to the seal in his mind.

‘Solevur opened her eyes and gazed upon an endless void. She was the first of the first, the originator of all.’

Zac read the first couple of pages. Its contents had nothing to do with Dasorm or his creation. Neither was it a skill or technique. The book was a primer on the First People. Their biology, culture, history, and way of life. Their origin, their feats, and most likely their fall. Zac felt a pang of sorrow and futility upon holding the book. Such a powerful civilization, all but erased by the river of time.

The pain of seeing millions of years of progress get wiped out was palpable. The desperate desire to leave at least a small mark on the cosmos. How many others like them were there? How many cataclysms had there been that erased all but the inheritance of the rarified few who managed to reach beyond the Dao and brush Eternity?

Zac sighed and put the tome away. He’d read it at a later time. Mostly because he was truly interested after seeing the vision and encountering this great fortune, but also because it might provide some contextual information to his newfound wealth of knowledge. Finally, Zac turned to the crystal. It was a bit of a letdown that the tome didn’t contain anything related to cultivation or the Void, but he could tell the crystal wasn’t simple.

Picking it up, dozens of tendrils burrowed into his hand. It was Void Energy, steadily replenishing what he’d lost to nurture the pick hammer. It wasn’t a huge amount though, not even at the level of using a Void Beast Core. However, Zac noted with interest the energy within the crystal didn’t decrease at all.

Zac tried to scan it a few times but couldn’t understand the incredibly complex crystal patterns within. He couldn’t even determine whether it was a Natural Treasure or something crafted. However, he did figure out that it really wasn’t losing energy to provide him with a steady stream of the Void. It was just like the Remnants.

The crystal was either generating Void Energy out of nowhere or absorbing it from another dimension. Zac thoughtfully looked at the thing for a few seconds before releasing some of his Branch of the Kalpataru. The air crackled from exposure to the ‘poison’ of the new era, but the crystal had a far more interesting reaction.

It shimmered and gained a golden hue that formed a small bubble around it, and the tendrils of Void Energy gained a different flavor. They’d become attuned, but not with Dao. Zac couldn’t be certain, but after practicing the [Void Vajra Sublimation] for years, he was quite confident the Void Energy was imbued with the Void of Life.

Releasing the Branch of the Pale Seal produced a similar effect. The crystal acted like a mirror, taking in and inverting the Dao Zac showed. The outside environment wouldn’t even harm it since it continuously exuded Void Energy and Void of Dao that nullified anything that touched it.

Was the thing perhaps a contingency by the First People? They knew the poison would soon cover the cosmos, so they invented a way for the inheritors to connect to the Void. Thanks to his bloodline, Zac didn’t need it for [Cosmic Forge], but it was still an amazing find. He could use it to drastically strengthen the Void of Life and Death in his Cosmic Core. With this as a foundational item, he would increase the speed with which he’d form the core and improve the result. It might even allow his Cosmic Core to generate Void Energy naturally.

Initially, Zac planned on using a mix of the [Stone of Celestial Void] and various Void-related items as a base for his core, but this crystal was far superior. It was like a generator that produced both Void and Void of Dao. Conversely, the [Stone of Celestial Void] only contained terrifying amounts of Void Energy and Vigor, making it much more suitable for bloodline improvements.

There was no description or name for the crystal, so Zac named it the [Void Engine]. The Dao inversion was magical, and it made Zac think of something. He thoughtfully took out the spherical egg he’d picked up from the brazier outside. The egg-like item hummed ominously as he put it closer to the [Void Engine]. Zac expected as much and quickly moved it away.

The Fate Kernels were created using simplified theories of the [Void Engine], and it looked like using the two together would unravel the kernel. In other words, he wouldn’t be able to use the empty Fate Kernel for himself. Still, Zac fully believed what he’d gained was far superior.

[Cosmic Forge] was an amazing gift that would solve many of his problems while increasing his self-sufficiency. However, it would take a long time before its true value showed itself in a way that could either bring in money or improve his combat strength. Conversely, the [Void Engine] would provide almost immediate benefits for his Core Formation.

He was another step closer to his goal. The [Hollow Core] from the Orom World to hold the nascent nucleus of the Cosmic Core. The [Calamity Core] to instill it with the first breath of Pure Life and Death. And now he had the [Void Engine] to provide Void Energy and the Void of Dao. The only thing missing was a foundational treasure for Conflict and a boatload of Mana before he was all set.

Zac looked around the empty courtyard. There was nothing else. The base materials in the structure were incredibly mundane now that the star was gone and not worth bothering over. Zac even suspected the building itself wasn’t something left behind by the First People. Rather, it had been formed from the energy in the sun, using any random nearby material. It would have been another matter if it had been some sort of interesting Void Material.

Then again, could those materials even be stored in a conventional Spatial Ring?

Since Zac was done with everything, he returned to the exit and went through the gates. Not that he had much of a choice. The inheritance space had steadily deteriorated since the firefly sun disappeared. It probably wouldn’t last more than another ten minutes, and Zac didn’t want to stay behind when it popped. The dark swirl in the sky was long gone, and the warm sunset drenched the mountain valley in amber luster. The world had returned to normal, but it was still a very different scene that met him compared to when he entered the inheritance.

There was over fifty people in the valley now. Zac anticipated a few to arrive, using various teleportation treasures. But not this many. There had only been twenty-two outsiders in the realm when he entered, and some were days away from this location. Others lacked the means to cover vast distances so quickly and were forced to use their legs to approach Zac’s location.

Furthermore, Zac only recognized six of these people—the others hadn’t been here when he activated the inheritance. It was only then he realized the impartment had taken just over three days. More than enough time for the news to spread to a select few. Now, most of them were using various means to scan the surroundings or form a resonance, unwilling to give up in case there was more to the huge events that had rocked the Quarry.

Catheya wasn’t there, but he spotted a hooded man standing in a corner with shadows flickering around him. A smile spread across Zac’s face upon seeing Ogras. No doubt the demon had already made some money on this crowd. Now, it was time to bring it home.

Zac took out a transparent glass container and put the empty Fate Kernel inside. From there, he took out one of his artisanal axes and carved a set of scripts on the glass. It wasn’t an array but rather a copy of the runes of the First People that had covered the large brazier that disappeared a few days ago. Finally, he filled the container with Void Energy before attaching an isolation array.

It wasn’t a perfect solution, but the kernel would hold for at least an hour as long as he kept the container close to his body. After the bait was completed, Zac turned into his Draugr form. There was no need to burn his human identity, and what was some additional notoriety to Arcaz Umbri’Zi? With all preparations complete, Zac donned a bashful smile as he emerged from the shielding bubble with the transparent glass canister floating next to him through telekinesis.

A person appearing out of nowhere at an inheritance site obviously drew attention, and Zac instantly had fifty sets of eyes trained on him.

“It’s him! The Draugr from the Calamity!” a shocked exclamation echoed out.

Zac recognized the man. It was the very same person who’d seen him emerge from the Calamity. Had he been hanging by the teleporters all this time, waiting for an opportunity to present itself?

Zac slowly swept his gaze across the crowd as though it was the first time he’d seen them. When he reached Ogras, the demon made a small sign indicating everything was okay. Zac inwardly breathed out in relief. Since Catheya was fine, he had no more misgivings about carrying out his plan.

“I see a lot of people came to congratulate me on my fortuitous encounter,” Zac smiled. “Thank you, everyone, thank you!”

“Who’s here to congratulate you?” a buff orc with some human heritage swore. “What kind of gut-wrenching luck do you have? First the Calamity, and now this?”

“Is that a Fate Kernel?” another person asked before Zac could answer, pointing at the glass case floating to Zac’s side.

“It looks just like the ones in the recording,” a golemoid confirmed.

“Good observation!” Zac said. “As you probably know, there were ten of these, but I can see they’re all gone now. Luckily, I just so happened to find two inside the true inheritance. I’ve used one already, so now I have a spare.”

“Name your price,” a cold-looking woman wearing an emerald crown said, clearly confident in her wealth.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Zac smiled. “The Perennial Vastness is a rare opportunity to meet other talents from across the Multiverse and broaden our horizons. How about this? Challenge me if you weren’t lucky enough to take one out of the brazier. I’ll give it to anyone who can defeat me.”

“Like we don’t know about your winning streak last month,” the golemoid scoffed, and a few others nodded in agreement.

“Then how about this. If no one has defeated me by the time I’ve dueled you all, I’ll sell the thing to the highest bidder,” Zac countered. “I can tell you right now, the inheritance is picked clean and gone. This is the last piece up for grabs.”

Ten people sighed and left, most of them through the mountains where Zac came from. Ten more, including Ogras, were neither confident in defeating him nor winning the auction, but they stepped to the side to spectate. That left thirty candidates who were ready to offer up some Mana.

Zac didn’t think he was invincible, but he’d already scanned everyone in the crowd. There were four at the level of the lionman or the Earth cultivator he encountered in the Calamity. Another ten or so weren’t quite at that level but still impressive, while the rest were no threat at all. Since this was a Green Zone and Zac could pick martial duels, he had some confidence in taking them all out. At worst, he’d lose one or two battles and have to give away the kernel for free.

“Greedy bastard,” the buff man from before laughed as he stepped forward. “I like it! Skills or martial?”

“Martial,” Zac said as [Love’s Bond] appeared on his back. One of the chains snapped up the floating glass case and wound itself around it until it formed a ball of fetters. “Oh, if anyone tries to steal the Fate Kernel, I’ll destroy it. I’ll also hunt you down, so you better not appear in Orange or Red Zones in the future.”

“We’ll make sure your… rules… are followed,” the cold woman said.

“Well, then, let’s do it!” Zac grinned.

Thirty minutes later, Zac stood by himself, panting and covered in surface wounds.

“Whew, alright. Who’s next?” Zac said, trying to look exhausted and vulnerable.

He’d like to call it an act, but he really was tired. Some of these people were surprisingly powerful, and were incredibly motivated. Defeating them all before the Fate Kernel expired took its toll. That cold woman in particular had almost won a martial duel, even if she was a mage. Still, Zac had already gained 2,806 Mana in half an hour, and all of the powerhouses of the crowd were dealt with. It should have been more, but one after another had given up as the minutes passed. Two had left while the rest joined the spectators.

“Well?” Zac said after no one had stepped forward after half a minute.

“It seems you are out of challengers,” the barbarian grinned as he looked at the chain ball hungrily. “Time to honor your agreement.”

“Not yet,” Zac said with a shake of his head.

“You’re going back on your promise?” the cold woman frowned. “You said you’d sell it after you had run out of challenges.”

“That’s not what I said,” Zac grunted as he stood up, his abyssal gaze turning to the spectators. “I said I’ll put it to auction after I’ve dueled everyone present. There are still 15 people present who I haven’t dueled. So how can I start the auction now?”

“Are you serious?” the woman frowned.

“Like a heart attack,” Zac said. “And do remember, there is not a single Fate Kernel left in the Quarry. This is the last chance.”

“We’ll be on our way, then,” one of the weaker spectators muttered as he backed off, but a hulking figure soundlessly appeared right behind him.

“You wanted to watch us get our ass beat and then slink away?” the barbarian grinned as he grabbed the man’s shoulder.

“This is a Green Zone!” the man frowned.

“That’s true, but we can keep you here until you come to your senses. Nothing illegal about that.”

Zac inwardly smiled. What the barbarian said was absolutely true, and it was another reason few solo cultivators wanted to mess with coalitions. They could cause trouble even in Green Zones, though they weren’t allowed to kill or rob. They could keep people locked down for months by rotating wardens if motivated. And Zac just so happened to have twenty-two highly motivated guards who had already made their move.

An immense emerald array had already sealed off the whole valley. It was the mage who almost defeated him. The powerful array she activated utilized Cosmic Crystals. A proper D-grade array. The mage had to be incredibly powerful and talented to use something like that freely. If not, it would destabilize and blow up in her face. It was almost as difficult and draining as using War Regalia in the E-grade.

“No more nonsense,” the woman said as the others formed a perimeter around the spectators. “You came here knowing the risks. You had many chances to leave, but you did not. Now, pay the price of Mana or pay a greater one.”

“I’ll remember anyone who drags their feet,” the barbarian added with a growl.

Zac wasn’t surprised by their impatience. Three days had already passed, and Zac guessed there would soon be far more people coming this way. They didn’t know Zac could only maintain the Fate Kernel for one hour, so they feared he would drag things out until they’d have to contend with hundreds for a chance to snatch it up. Honestly, Zac would have preferred to do things that way. It was a shame the inheritance space had started to destabilize.

“Wait!” one of the spectators said, ignoring the glaring looks as he turned to Zac. “You only told those who haven’t gotten a Fate Kernel to challenge you. This guy and I already got them.”

The man the ratkin pointed to was unsurprisingly Ogras.

Zac looked at the two, seemingly in thought. “Can you prove this?”

“I can!” the man said as a projection appeared. “Everyone knows this shadow guy; he’s been selling the information packets and recordings. He also recorded me absorbing my Fate Kernel.”

A smile tugged at Zac’s lips as he looked back and forth between Ogras and the ratman. Should he extort some Mana from the demon? No, he’d never hear the end of it.

“Fine. My word is my bond,” Zac agreed. “But the rest of you better step right up.”

And with that, the second harvest began.

40

A RISING TIDE

[MANA: 18,953]

Zac looked at the line appreciatively. Less than two months had passed since arriving, yet he was already approaching the third echelon. He was more than a year ahead of schedule, giving him far more leeway. Better yet, the Mana was only a cherry on top of his real gain—[Cosmic Forge]. And now, a final windfall waited for him.

“Alright, buddy, you’ve squeezed Mana out of all of us. Time to get this show on the road,” the barbarian hollered, not even trying to hide his jealousy over Zac’s good fortune.

“Why look so glum?” Zac smiled. “Didn’t most of you discover new directions to improve your blueprints?”

“Sublime energy comprehension,” the cold-eyed mage said while looking at Zac speculatively. “I am quite curious how you’ve reached that point as an E-grade cultivator. Especially when you do not follow a path utilizing that knowledge.”

“If you want, we can postpone the auction while I regale you about my experiences?” Zac smiled, but he didn’t get so much as a scoff in response.

“Guess not. Well, place your bids. Coins are fine, but I am also looking for Supreme Perennial Treasures.”

Perennial Treasures weren’t a true categorization but a local name for treasures found in the Perennial Vastness and useful in Core Formation. He was hoping to find something either for himself or his companions. If that failed, he’d take cash since he suspected he could get a tidy sum for the kernel. A few of the people in the crowd looked quite wealthy.

“100 D-grade Nexus Coins,” a beastkin offered, but he didn’t even have time to finish the sentence before being outbid.

“300.”

“450.”

A series of rapid-fire offers pushed the price tag upward, but Zac wasn’t overly enthused. The item had crossed 1,000 D-grade Nexus Coins in seconds. It was a fair offer for what was essentially a Pseudo D-grade treasure, but not what Zac hoped to hear when faced with a bunch of scions from the inner regions of the Multiverse.

“I have a set of [Sundew Drops] found in the Red Zone Umber Steppes.”

“I have an unnamed fruit I found in the Blackstar Ruins. It holds immense resentment.”

“Pah, what good are those things? Neither are Supreme treasures. Fifty thousand,” the barbarian said, which made Zac look over in surprise.

It wasn’t just that he added a zero to the price in one go. Zac was surprised the man had so much money to throw around. He’d guessed the barbarian was a bit like himself regarding his background. The warrior’s raw power was possibly the highest in the group, but his combat style had some glaring flaws. Furthermore, his blueprint had been so rough that Zac gained 40 Mana from the bounty.

In other words, the barbarian seemed like a talented warrior who’d gotten his hands on the Perennial Vastness Token through a fortuitous encounter rather than his family. Roughly a third of the guests arrived that way, and they generally had weaker backgrounds and smaller purses.

Then again, while many of the scions arrived in the Perennial Vastness with massive fortunes, that money wasn’t for them. It was provided by their families to purchase materials they were lacking or things that could be traded for profit. If they burned that capital on cultivation resources for themselves, they’d get punished upon returning.

50,000 D-grade Nexus Coins was a massive price tag for a single item, eclipsing most of his Cosmic Vessels. But it wasn’t enough to make more than half of the guests back down. The price continued to climb toward 100,000 until an impatient snort echoed through the valley.

“1 C-grade Nexus Coin,” the emerald mage said with not so much as a ripple in her eyes.

A silence spread across the crowd, and all eyes were trained on the human mage. A few looked at her like she was a fool, while most had ruminating or downright jealous expressions.

“One point five,” the barbarian said with grit teeth. “Come on, darling? I’ll owe you one.”

“Five,” the mage countered without missing a beat, completely ignoring the barbarian. “But on one condition.”

Zac didn’t answer immediately. He turned to the others, but everyone indicated they were out. Zac was disappointed, though he understood their thoughts. Fate Kernels ultimately had limited usefulness. Those who had the qualifications to arrive here were either extremely talented or connected. Forming a Cosmic Core was almost a given. A Fate Kernel could slightly improve the result, but the Perennial Vastness was already doing most of the heavy lifting with its Mana.

The kernel would save a few decades of cultivation in the D-grade at most. Paying multiple C-grade Nexus Coins for that simply wasn’t worth it for most. Furthermore, few scions would carry that wealth for their cultivation. For example, Catheya only had a few hundred D-grade Nexus Coins until her experiences in the Twilight Ascent elevated her status. This young woman was no doubt a real big shot.

Five C-grade Nexus Coins was a massive windfall even for Zac with all his ventures. He’d hoped for 1 C-grade Nexus Coin if a heated bidding war erupted, but this woman threw out money like it was worth nothing. A smile tugged at Zac’s lips upon seeing Ogras turn a shade greener on the sidelines. Perhaps he was even regretting absorbing his kernel instead of pawning it off.

“What condition?” Zac asked when it was clear no one planned to outbid her.

“I want to know the origin and nature of the opportunity you encountered,” the mage said.

“I can divulge the origins but not what I got my hands on,” Zac said after some thought.

“That’s fine,” the mage said as she walked over.

Meanwhile, the emerald barrier around the valley dissipated, and Zac was surprised to see eight people standing outside. The barrier had looked transparent, but it had been manipulated not to show Zac that more people had arrived. He wryly smiled, not too broken up about it. The windfall was already better than he’d expected from his impromptu scheme.

“Should’ve asked Grandma for more money,” the barbarian muttered as he strolled away. “Hey, dead guy. I’m Kruta. If you’re planning to head to one of the war zones, bring me along, yeah? I could use your luck.”

“Sure.” Zac smiled. “But we’d be in contention for the treasures.”

“You bring the chaos, and I’ll fish in the muddy waters,” the barbarian laughed before he jumped away.

One by one, the rest left as well. The opportunities were gone, but everyone knew this place would get more volatile as time passed. They’d already been scammed out of some Mana and weren’t interested in bringing more trouble down on their shoulders. A handful stayed on, refusing to give up based on just Zac’s words.

The mage erected a barrier around them, which far surpassed any of the isolation arrays Zac possessed. He couldn’t sense a thing from the outside, like the array had formed a separate dimension.

“I’m Arcaz Umbri’Zi, by the way.”

“I’ve heard of you,” the mage nodded. “Asta Ar.”

“Do you sell these arrays?” Zac asked curiously.

“This one has proprietary solutions, but I sell slightly depreciated versions. They only lack 8% strength and lack the defense against a few types of advanced spying methods,” the mage said. “However, they do not run on Miasma.”

“That’s fine,” Zac shrugged as the canister floated over. “Give me a couple and deduct the price from your purchase.”

“I studied the pillar for two hours before it dissipated,” Asta commented. “This glass case is fake.”

“Sure, but the kernel is real,” Zac said, not too surprised an array master could figure out his scheme.

“How did you prevent it from dissipating?”

“Just filled the canister with the weird energy inside the inheritance. I figured I’d notice if it started to break apart.”

“I see,” Asta said, clearly not buying Zac’s explanation. “And the origins?”

“The First People,” Zac said and recorded a translated version of the primer’s first chapter.

“The First People, how extraordinary,” the woman sighed, her face softening quite a bit. For a moment, she reminded Zac of Vai, brimming with academic curiosity. “Where did you get this text from?”

“I found a book with historical accounts rather than skills or Cultivation Manuals.”

“It’s really one of the 229,” Asta muttered, prompting Zac’s eyes to widen.

“You knew of this place?”

“I didn’t know it was a precept of the First People, but I have read about their heritages. A few of their remnants have appeared over the years, including one in a neighboring empire. It had collapsed, and the inheritance was lost, but the explorers found a book. As it often does, some of the contents were leaked and spread. Are you amenable to selling the book or making a copy?”

“You can come and get a translated version after I’ve read the book in full,” Zac said after some thought. “I want to ensure there are no hidden impartments within before handing it over.”

The First People’s greatest desire was to be remembered, so Zac felt he could just as well spread the primer. It was just a small act of reciprocity in the face of the massive gift they’d given him. But he’d keep the original for himself, just in case.

“That’s acceptable,” Asta said. “I’m a member of the Tranquil Moon Pavilion. Please let me know if you find any other items or writings of historical significance during your stay. We are always searching for lost and ancient knowledge.”

“Sure,” Zac waved.

He had no idea what the Tranquil Moon Pavilion was, but he guessed it was a powerful sect from the Heartlands. It wasn’t often Zac met sect disciples. Most regions were dominated by clans rather than sects, which wasn’t surprising. A family had an easier time maintaining cohesion against outside threats, and they had a cultivation advantage regarding bloodlines. Besides, the Limitless Empire was governed this way, which created echoes across the Multiverse through the System.

Still, many regions were fully controlled by sects, who maintained their dominion by ensuring no families grew too powerful. They held rigorous testing across their lands, making sure to bring talented children into the fold long before they could grow up and become pillars of a family.

Asta left, and Zac followed suit after confirming Ogras was already gone. He ran through winding paths for a few minutes before activating [Abyssal Phase]. The mountain range turned into a blur as Zac pushed the skill to its limits, crossing vast swathes in minutes. When he couldn’t maintain the skill any longer, he reformed and kept running for another twenty minutes.

Zac stopped before a seemingly normal wall, but he passed right through it after scanning the region as best as he could. A series of tunnels would lead to the other side of the mountain, but Zac simply took out a chair and sat down. It was a meet-up location he and Ogras had prepared before heading toward the final seal.

Twenty minutes later, Ogras stepped through the illusion array, grinning as he saw Zac sitting in meditation. “Everything went well?”

“No complaints.”

“No complaints,” Ogras said with a roll of his eyes. “Heaven-touched bastard. I thought I made off like a bandit, selling information packages and recordings for 18,000 D-grade Nexus Coins. Clearly, my ambitions are too low.”

“Well, that’s not too bad a haul for some information,” Zac said. “Where’s Catheya?”

“She’s not too far from here,” Ogras said. “She opted to move closer to the teleportation pillar after the first group of people arrived. She could send a warning in case there were some big movements that way, and I guess being a solo undead in this kind of situation is asking for trouble.”

They set out through the mountain, soon emerging on the other side. Ogras’ appearance had returned to how he’d looked while the two toured the Quarry, while Zac was in his human form. They suddenly looked like the two random cultivators who had entered the Quarry in search of Fate Kernels 11 days ago.

“So, what did you get in there?” the demon eventually asked.

“I’m surprised you lasted a whole 20 minutes before asking,” Zac laughed.

“Well?” Ogras said, not looking even slightly shamefaced.

“Well, nothing that would help either you or me in the short-run,” Zac said. “But come see me when you get a piece of War Regalia on your hands.”

“What’s going on?” Ogras asked with interest.

“I got a pretty interesting craftsman inheritance,” Zac said. “Only part of it is unlocked, but I think it has amazing potential.”

“Of course you did,” Ogras sighed. “Now you’re just lacking your sister’s unnaturally precise Dao Control. Then, you can finally make everyone burn with envy.”

“Don’t be like that,” Zac laughed. “A rising tide raises all ships.”

Luckily Ogras didn’t know about Jeeves and how Zac was meant to have exactly the ability he described. He’d never stop complaining.

“I guess that’s true,” Ogras said. “Now what? I need to know which realm you’ll turn on its head if I want to visit it beforehand.”

“I need to go over my plans before making a decision. This encounter changed some things. It looks like I have to enter the Red Zones of all the Dao Peaks to advance my craft,” Zac said.

“Might want to reach the third echelon first,” Ogras said. “That way, you’ll at least have a weak Mana domain to help you withstand the environments. Some of those environments are no joke, even for someone like you.”

“We’ll see how it goes,” Zac nodded.

“Not even two months, and you’ve already caused so much chaos,” Ogras sighed as he looked up at the sky. “I wonder, can the Perennial Vastness even survive ten years of your presence?”

One hour later, they stopped and turned to look up at a mountain peak. Catheya stood there, lit up by the evening sun. Zac forgot to breathe for a second but was woken up by a snicker to the side.

“You’re okay. I started to get worried. More and more people are coming,” Catheya’s voice echoed out, and Zac spotted an ice crystal floating nearby.

“Thank you for keeping watch,” Zac said.

“How can that compare to your gift?” Catheya’s voice echoed through the crystal. “Why not visit my place tomorrow? I didn’t get a chance to properly thank you before, so let me act as host.”

A smile spread on his face. “I’ll see you there.”

Catheya winked and was gone the next second, leaving a shimmering cloud of ice in her wake.

“A proper thank you, huh? Lucky duck.” Ogras grinned. “Don’t come expecting that kind of gratitude from me, buddy. My spear doesn’t stab that way.”

“Thank the gods for that,” Zac said with a roll of his eyes.

“I guess I should follow your lead,” the demon muttered, scratching his chin. “There are quite a few women here who’d cause mayhem if they walked down the streets back home. Noble ladies finally out of the overbearing watch of their ancestors.”

“Have fun. Just don’t get yourself killed,” Zac snorted. “I’ll be going on ahead.”

“Go, go. Get your reward. I’ll see if I can sell my information packets to a few more people,” Ogras waved. “And Zac? Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Zac smiled as he disappeared.

A day later, Zac stood in his manor, infusing his will into the teleportation array.

“Catheya Sharvai’Zi,” Zac said.

Twenty seconds passed where nothing happened until a teleportation gate opened. A cold wave blasted him the moment he stepped through, though there was a current of warmth burrowing into his pores. Death. Even then, it wasn’t enough to sustain his Draugr form, and he had to constantly circulate his Miasma and Dao to stave off the creeping frost of Catheya’s mansion.

The building itself was a series of quaint connected pagodas made of ice and black stone that stood on a hill overlooking a vast landscape that was essentially flat. It was a blistering tundra under a cold-blue moon, where swirls of ice gave the environment a mysterious sheen. The ground was pocked with pitch-black circles—ponds with deathly waters.

Just looking at them made Zac’s mind shudder. For most, they were likely a death trap, but Zac suspected their depths were cultivation havens. That was doubly so for the small pond right before the pagodas. It didn’t look much different from the other black spots on the horizon, but it emitted an intense chill. Furthermore, small ripples appeared on its surface, even with no wind. It was Dao.

“You’re here,” Catheya waved as she walked over.

She wasn’t bothered by the cold, wearing a beautiful blue dress Zac hadn’t seen before. With the ethereal backdrop, she looked like an ice goddess who’d walked out of a painting.

“You look nice,” Zac croaked after realizing he’d been staring a bit too long.

A smile played on Catheya’s lips as she grabbed his hand. “Come. Let me show you my place.”

41

TEARS OF BELSIM

The cold no longer felt as invasive as Catheya led Zac toward one of the outermost pagodas.

“This region is called Tears of Belsim,” Catheya said. “According to legend—”

“What legend?” Zac said with confusion. “Was this a part of the Empire before?”

“How could it be? You know, there is a lot of information in the libraries. Maybe if you stopped swinging your axe for a moment…” Catheya smiled.

“I’ve been planning to get around to those scrolls,” Zac coughed.

“Anyway. According to legend, Belsim was a spirit born from a Supreme Natural Treasure. The day it awoke, the whole world froze over. The civilizations which lived on the planet were extinguished, and not even the ancestors could avoid their demise.

“Belsim didn’t know any of this. It was innocent to the ways of the world. It didn’t understand its birth had come at the cost of billions of lives. But as it grew older, the spirit started to wish for more. It left its birthplace, traveling across the world of Ice and Death. Wherever it went, it felt echoes of itself.

“First, Belsim didn’t think there was anything odd about that. It was one with the land, so it was natural for it to sense its Dao in the ground and air. But then, it found the civilizations. Whole cities of small beings frozen in place, their citizens filled with death and resentment. Places that weren’t meant to have Belsim’s mark.

“Eventually, Belsim figured out what had happened. The price of its becoming. It tried to fix what it had done, absorbing the energy it imposed on the small creatures. It wasn’t enough. Then, it swallowed the death of a world and was indelibly transformed. But that only meant the small creatures had become hollow husks without energy. Those people were gone forever. These ponds are the tears Belsim shed as they realized there was nothing they could do.”

“That’s…” Zac hesitated.

“I’m sorry, the story is a bit heavy,” Catheya said as she led him into the leftmost pagoda. “Come, let me show you something else.”

A familiar wall filled with scrolls lined the inner wall, while the rest of the interior looked like a living room. It didn’t mirror the cold and blue of the outside world and were instead filled with warmth and color. A series of intricately woven rugs covered the ground, hiding the cold hard stone beneath. They reminded Zac of a Bedouin tent, though the room had classical furniture.

There were reading nooks and sofas, all of them in warm colors. A stark juxtaposition to the cold palette outside. The scene was quite different from what he’d expected as Zac remembered how Catheya usually formed ice furniture for herself. The walls were no exception to the decoration. Over a dozen paintings covered the walls, all painted with stark colors and bold strokes.

They initially seemed like abstract splashes of color, but Zac soon stopped and looked to the side. It was a painting dominated by splotches of angry red, with accompanying details of deep blue, gold, and purple. Something about it was drawing him in, and a few seconds passed until he realized there was order to the madness.

After a few more seconds, he felt the scene shift. The red splotches were no longer dots of paint but rustling leaves of tree crowns. Gold rivers ran between the trees, all under a purple sky dominated by blue, flying creatures.

“This is?” Zac asked curiously.

“A small hobby of mine,” Catheya smiled as she walked up next to Zac. “This is an unstable realm I visited inside the Million Gates Territory. The moment I stepped through the spatial rift, I knew it would make a great painting.”

“You painted all of these?” Zac said with surprise.

“Of course,” Catheya said. “I’m not sure how you’re able to keep constantly pushing forward. Most of us need outlets to decompress. This is something I learned from my mother.”

“Your mother? I think that’s the first time you’ve mentioned her.”

“She’s from a distant subsidiary branch of Sharva’Zi. She and my father had a short romance when he emerged from secluded cultivation. They met when he saw her paint a mountain range. When I was born, I was lucky enough to have a strong mark of Zi even though my mother’s heritage is weak. I became an official daughter of the main clan.”

“If you hadn’t had the bloodline?”

“Then I would have lived with my mother’s branch, though my father’s identity would have resulted in me getting adopted by the clan leader,” Catheya shrugged. “I still visit when I get the chance.”

Zac hummed and looked around. Draugr society was mostly similar to what he was used to, but there were some distinct differences. Marriages were uncommon and almost only took place between Dao Partners. Perhaps it made more sense. Until death do us part had a completely different meaning when some lived for millions of years.

It was more common to have shorter trysts between cultivation sessions or missions, and those affairs occasionally resulted in children being born. Of course, this was mainly for Hegemons and higher. Those stuck in the lower grades had more traditional family structures.

Catheya’s situation was fairly normal, though the difference in status between her parents seemed unusually large. Bloodline decided which clan the offspring would be part of, though there were rare exceptions. For example, if Catheya’s father had wanted to adopt his daughter even if she was born with the lower bloodline, he probably could’ve.

By the sound of it, her parents were no longer together, which meant Catheya’s mother would have returned to her clan. Perhaps the two split when Catheya was young, which would explain why Catheya still had a connection with her even though their bloodlines didn’t match. Many parents severed their connection shortly after birth if their bloodlines didn’t match.

Ultimately, the clan was considered the true family unit, and being a father or mother was not seen as very important. It all felt a bit foreign to Zac, but it was quite normal compared to some societies he’d read about over the past years.

“What about you?”

“Me?” Zac said, hesitating a bit. “My dad died during the first month of the Integration. He was a mortal like me, but we were split up. He was killed when the batch of cultivators returned from the tutorial. My mother died when I was young. My sister… died a few years after the Integration. Only me left now.”

“I’m sorry…” Catheya sighed as she placed her hand on his arm.

Zac gave her a weak smile then turned to another painting. It almost looked like a starry sky partly shrouded by an ethereal haze. It was beautiful but gave off a sense of danger. Zac recognized the scene. “The Vigorbloom Lilacs.”

“That’s where I got to know you. Well, some of your secrets, at least.”

“It’s beautiful,” Zac said. “You’re really good.”

“You can’t have it,” Catheya grinned.

“I wasn’t fishing or anything,” Zac assured, though he muttered under his breath, “Stingy.”

“I’ll paint you something else,” Catheya laughed. “Come.”

They toured one building after another, where Catheya excitedly showed off interesting plants she’d trapped in ice or paintings of her visits. Eventually, they reached a padded bench overlooking the mysterious pond at the foot of the hill, where a bottle and two glasses already stood waiting on a table. The two sat next to each other, and Zac’s mind shuddered as he felt a brief bout of déjà vu.

The view was completely different to back home, but the situation was reminiscent of those mornings he’d shared with Thea in his pergola. He didn’t push the thoughts aside, letting them pass on their own. More than a decade had gone by since then, and Zac knew he had to let go and move on. Doing so didn’t mean he’d forgiven his mother or forgotten his goals. It meant he would look ahead instead of being trapped in the past.

“By the way, how’s the kernel?” Zac asked. “No problems, right?”

“It’s the opposite, really,” Catheya said as she poured Zac a glass. “It’s amazing. Almost feels like I have another Hidden Node. Energy flows smoother, and the Dao feels clearer. It’s a shame it’ll be gone after I form my Cosmic Core.”

“Who knows, it might have lasting effects,” Zac mused.

“Really?”

“Well, they felt a lot more powerful than normal kernels. They might permanently improve your affinity.”

“Then it’d be the second time you got me something that raises my talent,” Catheya said as she looked deeply into Zac’s eyes. “My fate really has been sent off-kilter by you.”

Zac’s mouth opened, but his mind went blank.

Zac coughed after a few seconds of awkward silence. “It’s quite the view. This place really is perfect for you. You were a lot smarter than me when picking your home base.”

Zac expected Catheya to use the prompt to explain the mysterious pond beyond its mythological origin. Still, he was surprised to find her smile turn crooked as some sorrow appeared in her eyes.

“Perfect for me,” Catheya sighed.

“What’s wrong?”

Catheya didn’t move for a few seconds before answering.

“I was born with a great affinity to Ice and Death, so my father entrusted me to his friend who walked a similar path. I’ve lived and cultivated within environments such as this all my life. It’s, as you say, perfect for me. But it sometimes feels like a prison.

“The Perennial Vastness is a gateway to all kinds of wonders. There are thousands of worlds holding environments I didn’t even know existed. Yet I’ll have to keep going back to the worlds of Ice and Death. The rest are hostile to me in a way I don’t think you living understand,” Catheya said, shaking her head when Zac was about to interject. “I can tell you don’t really feel the suppression like I do. Some zones are so damaging I can feel my body dying unless I actively resist with beacons or Miasma Crystals. I’m relegated to a corner of the Heavens.

“Maybe that’s why that story with the Belsim resonated with me.”

“I’m sorry, I—” Zac said, but Catheya shook her head as she placed her hand on his.

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t complain. I know I’m better off than most. Staying in the Perennial Vastness is just a constant reminder of how we are outsiders.”

“Well, how about this?” Zac said after some thought. “I’ll sneak into the Heart of the Empire when I visit. That place probably has all kinds of good things. Finding something that will allow you to travel the Multiverse shouldn’t be too hard.”

“You’ll fight the Primo and steal his stuff for me?” Catheya grinned.

“He can try to stop me, but I’ve gotten pretty good at blowing up stuff and creating a mess,” Zac winked.

Catheya laughed, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Then I’ll be waiting.”

The two were content sitting like that for a minute until Catheya spoke up again. “What will you do next?”

“I got a treasure in the inheritance that needs to be fed with treasures from all Dao Peaks, so I’ll be visiting one Red Zone after another,” Zac said. “It’s weird. I was ahead of schedule, but now I feel I’m somehow behind again.”

“When are you setting out?”

“I…” Zac said as he looked down at Catheya. “Uh… Maybe tomorrow?”

A mischievous smile appeared on her face. “Come, there’s one more thing I want to show you.”

Zac grunted as he heaved himself up the ledge, his muscles shuddering from the exertion. His fingers were slick with sweat, but the rough rocks were thankfully providing enough purchase to avoid falling. Just two hours, and he felt as though he’d been fighting for his life ten days and ten nights straight. Yet when looking down, he saw he’d only managed to ascend a few thousand meters. Barely enough to make a dent.

The realization was almost enough to make Zac turn around and leave. Of course, it was more about what waited back home than the difficulty of the climb. Catheya. He didn’t know if their new relationship was just a fling or the beginning of something more. It was new, exciting, and returning to her side held far greater temptation than testing himself against a hostile Red Zone.

Zac shook his head, rejecting the notion. It had been fun acting like teenagers in love over the past weeks, but they needed to keep accumulating Mana while working on their cultivation. Looking at the bright side, time apart made the heart grew fonder, adding fuel to their next rendezvous.

By this point, the sun was high in the sky, drowning the sharp peak in light. When he arrived, the sun had just appeared on the horizon. There was no warmth to the light like a normal sun, but neither was there anything else. It was just pure light containing an invasive and unyielding force. Zac tried to resist it the best he could, but not even [Void Zone] worked against the rays. It was like the light had a physical characteristic, glomming onto him and weighing him down.

As if the intense gravity of the mountain needed any help making his life miserable. And it would only get worse from here. Soon, the light would be replaced by darkness. Active darkness, and not just the absence of the sun. It would pour onto him just like the light now was, putting even greater restrictions on his body. This was the true danger of the Imperial Spire. The longer you stayed, the more cycles of light and darkness you’d experience. Each cycle would tack on the weight you experienced, and there was no way to cleanse it except to leave the region.

If you were too slow, the weight would overwhelm you before you reached the upper reaches where the treasures waited. And if you weren’t careful, you could find yourself stuck. Gravity increased the farther you climbed, and the cycles of light and darkness would continuously worsen the situation. It was easy to reach a point where you didn’t have the strength to descend the mountain safely. Just breaking a few bones was the least of your worries. There was a real risk of being turned into meat paste on the mountain slopes.

Zac looked up at the almost vertical peak, sweat pouring down his face. Still a long, long way to go before he reached his target.

[Red Mission: Extract Revolution Orbs from the Imperial Spire. Bounty: 200 Mana per extracted Revolution Orb. Orbs must be fully removed from the Imperial Spire to be considered extracted. Maximum Participants: 1. NOTE: Multiple guests can accept this mission.]

The [Revolution Orbs] didn’t have anything to do with overthrowing the unnamed emperor after which this mountain was named. They were Natural Treasures formed by the revolution of light and darkness that kept him and all other guests on their toes. Just as the revolutions left some mysterious energy on his body, so did they leave behind energies on the mountain itself.

Sometimes, these energies turned into [Revolution Orbs]—treasures encompassing all three major directions of the Peak of Taiji. And the target for Zac, who hoped to kill two birds with one stone. Earn some Mana and feed his Omnitool, which apparently was the real name of the hammer pick floating around in his mind.

This was the first peak he targeted, and the experience made him wonder if it was a mistake jumping into the deep end without listening to Ogras’s advice. Even the weakest Mana Barrier would have been a godsend to deal with the pressure. It would have been easier to target treasures from the peaks of Conflict and Chaos first, but it wasn’t convenient. For Chaos, there was the Calamity, but that region was still in flux. And since Zac needed to return later to pick up the Remnants anyway, there was no point in heading to a similar zone.

As for the Peak of Conflict, he didn’t have access. There were multiple good options, most of them ancient battlefields. However, they contained such dangerous lingering resentment that they required the fourth echelon or higher to access. There were less dangerous realms, even Orange Zone battlefields, but visiting those felt like a waste of time. The odds of finding the Supreme treasures he needed for the Omnitool would be vanishingly low.

That led him to the Imperial Spire. It was by no means the easiest or safest of the accessible Red Zones, but he had an inherent advantage. Most living races had an advantage when climbing under the light, while they faced incredible suppression in darkness. Conversely, undead, most golemoids, and some other species could make swift progress in the dark, relatively speaking, while they suffered under the light.

Someone like him could explore the mountain without suffering the full weight of the zone.

Zac kept going, climbing higher and higher. Neither Vivi nor Alea were much help. They barely managed to raise their tendrils against the gravity, and their extra weight made climbing even harder. Alea returned to her necklace form while Vivi retracted all but a bulbous flower that soaked in the light.

Skills were no good either. For one, the gravity was so overbearing even his Cosmic Energy was suppressed. He’d narrowly managed to activate his skills, but [Ancestral Forest] instantly failed, and [Earthstrider] only moved him a few meters at the cost of almost killing him. He didn’t even dare try [Abyssal Phase] under this suppression.

Thankfully, [Void Zone] was able to give Zac the occasional breather. And with his enormous pool of strength, he covered more ground in a single light cycle than most did in five. Soon, night arrived, and Zac swapped over to his Draugr form on a ledge and kept going. Four days passed this way until Zac finally saw a blast of light from a ledge above. The scene filled Zac’s exhausted body with newfound strength, and he swiftly crossed the final stretch.

It was lying there right in the open—a grey pearl containing an immense sense of weight. It occasionally emitted bursts of intense darkness or light, which was what he’d seen before. Zac almost stumbled upon feeling the intense gravity zone the orb created.

“Holy crap,” Zac grunted, feeling like he would slip a disk when lifting the fist-sized orb.

It dislodged the natural formation that kept all [Revolution Orbs] spatially locked, but it didn’t do much to help with the weight. He knew he couldn’t put it down. According to Null, it would fuse with the mountain if he did, so he desperately held on with his right hand as the Omnitool appeared in his left.

Zac lightly tapped the hammer against the orb according to a set pattern. There was no response. Zac tried a few more times, but the orb was about to slip out of his grasp. He recalled the tool with a sigh before stowing the [Revolution Orb] in a spare High-quality Spatial Ring. Those things were so heavy they could damage the subspace of the Spatial Tools they were in. His main ring was probably sturdy enough, but why take the risk?

He had reached the altitude where the [Revolution Orbs] started to appear. The conventional method to finish his quest would be climbing sideways in search of more orbs. When you could no longer endure the layers of light and dark, you’d descend with your haul. But Zac’s gaze turned upward. The Omnitool didn’t want [Revolution Orbs], but nothing said the orbs were the only things that could appear on the mountain.

The best things were no doubt at the peak.

42

AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

All sound and light were muted in the depths of the pond. It was almost like time stood still, frozen by the intense cold from the depths. Catheya continuously dragged energy into her body from the frigid waters as she circulated [Frigid Doctrine of Zi]. Ichor coursed through her veins, harmonizing and assimilating the pond’s energies while the essence of the energies was dragged into the seed in her lower abdomen.

She had finally managed to reach the 100-meter ledge. Catheya still couldn’t see the bottom of the Belsim pond, though she guessed she’d reached the halfway point. She would be ready to start her Core Formation when she could reach that spot and stay there without being overwhelmed by the death and cold.

Of course, that final stretch was no joke. Catheya shuddered as another glacial tendril from below caressed her leg, leaving her calf frozen solid. She wouldn’t give in. She could tell there was something special about the depths. Perhaps an array or a natural formation? Either case, the depths felt like a bonfire of Dao when she circulated her manual. Not even the shallows of the Abyssal Lake emitted such intense power, though the Tears of Belsim didn’t nurture her bloodline.

“You have an entry request.”

‘He’s here?’ Catheya asked as she slowly opened her eyes.

“An Ogras Azh’Rezak requests an audience,” Winter answered.

A surge of annoyance flared in Catheya’s chest, but she still started ascending the pond. Zac was already three days late to their date, and now his shadow came knocking instead? She knew they were all busy, but it still hurt.

She’d heard of how women back home ignored their partners as punishment for their transgressions. But how was that a punishment to Zac? He’d get engrossed by one of his projects in no time and soon forget he was being ignored. Infuriating. Besides, his drive and dedication were attributes she loved, so the situation was doubly frustrating.

A wave of frigid air greeted Catheya as she emerged from the pond, but the ice-swept winds were almost sweltering after spending the past five days in the depths. She channeled her Miasma to dry her clothes and hair as she accepted the request through her guide.

“What is it?” Catheya grunted as the demon stepped through the gate.

“What’s with the long face?” the demon grinned, then shuddered. “This place is the worst.”

“Well, it wasn’t made for you,” Catheya said. “Where is he?”

“I found some clues to an item he needed for that hammer of his the other day,” Ogras explained.

That accursed hammer. This wasn’t the first date it had ruined over the past year.

“You or your goblin?” Catheya asked.

“What’s the difference? We’re both benefitting, aren’t we?” Ogras snorted. “Or do you want to change our agreement?”

“Nevermind, I’m just a bit annoyed,” Catheya sighed. “So, you found some clues.”

“The numbers indicated a Green Zone, so we feared it’d start a global quest if we waited. We’ve been narrowing it down for the past week,” Ogras explained as he took out a bottle that seemed to contain liquid fire. He took a deep swig, and Catheya could see how the demon’s life force almost seemed to have ignited. “That’s better.”

“So?”

“He needs your help. Can we go before my little spear turns into an icicle?”

“He clearly preferred your help,” Catheya said, unable to fully keep the resentment of her voice. “Why bother coming to me and ruin your good time?”

“Is that what you want me to convey?” Ogras countered with a raised brow.

“…No,” Catheya said. “Where to?”

“Well… It’s the Heavenly Cauldrons.”

Catheya blanched, looking at the demon suspiciously. “Are you trying to get me killed?”

“If a Green Zone can kill you, you’re probably not ready for Hegemony.”

“You know what I mean,” Catheya glowered. “That place is my nemesis.”

“That’s why he needs your help. Opposites and all that,” Ogras said.

“Fine,” Catheya sighed as she mentally prepared herself for an absolutely dreadful day.

“What a devoted wife.” The demon grinned as the teleportation array activated. “Entering the gates of hell for her beloved. Makes my heart swell.”

Catheya would normally have started shooting icicles after the demon at this point, but she was busy placing talismans on her body to deal with the heat that radiated out of the gate. The two stepped through, and Catheya had to forcibly resist jumping back in. Waves of Fire and Life assaulted her and tried to burrow into her body. They stood atop scorched steppes covered with angrily shining moss.

Within that moss, small beetles scuttled about, making Catheya’s skin crawl.

“Yeah, not great,” Ogras commented as he followed Catheya’s gaze. “They’re only by the teleporter, though. I think they like the spatial energy.”

“Where to?” Catheya said, her skin already heating up.

The talismans lit up one after another and started releasing the stockpiled Miasma, and a ring on her finger formed a protective icy mist. Unfortunately, her preparations could only do so much when faced with a fully attuned environment. She was only one person, and it was impossible to push away the pervasive Dao around her completely. It was like trying to hide a stench with perfume. It just resulted in a different type of stinky scent.

“This way, young miss,” the insufferable demon said with a bow. How did he manage to make a bow sarcastic?

They didn’t exchange many words as they set out across the steppes, passing a series of golden rivers and pools of magma. Thankfully, Zac was inside a large volcano she could see far in the distance. It wouldn’t take more than an hour or two to get there.

“Any news from your goblin friend?” Catheya asked.

“He says a surge is forming,” Ogras said. “Right now, the energy levels across most realms are decreasing slightly, but that’s because it’s accumulating.”

“When?” Catheya asked.

“Two years, maybe. It’ll depend on the realms. Some might only need a final push to produce a material.”

“Will you two be able to figure it out in time?” Catheya asked curiously.

This was their shot. Zac was just too much of a machine, and they couldn’t keep up unless he visited realms suited for their strength. Neither did either feel comfortable relying too heavily on him for Mana. So she and Ogras decided to team up, using [Perennial Transformations] as a foundation. They had already triggered and finished two local quests, though they’d only gained 1,000 Mana each this way.

However, it was relatively risk-free and only took them a couple of days. The problem was it being quite difficult to meet the requirements of that Numerologist Zac knew. His scheme was essentially to abuse hidden rules of the Perennial Vastness and create artificial fate through proximity and timing. Arrive early or too late, and you wouldn’t trigger a personal quest. Either no quest would trigger or a global one if the treasure was valuable enough.

It was quite ingenious but also very difficult to perfect. Luckily, Ogras had that mysterious spectral goblin for help. In return, she provided manpower through the Undead Empire. She was also more powerful than the demon, so they had agreed to split the bounties 50-50. Still, it was shocking how much the man had grown since they met in the Tower of Eternity. She wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on if she hadn’t been sent to the Abyssal Shores.

Especially when you considered that flag… Catheya shuddered at the memory. She knew a thing or two about souls and reanimation, and that thing wasn’t natural.

They kept a steady pace, though Catheya felt her focus start to waver at the constant onslaught of hostile Dao and Energy. Thankfully, they’d reached the volcano, and Catheya gritted her teeth upon seeing a familiar figure step out from a hidden tunnel.

“You!” Catheya growled as she stomped over. “Two days late, and then you drag me to this purgatory? What did I do to deserve this?”

“I’m sorry. Look, I’m suffering with you!” Zac said as he quickly transformed into his Draugr form. Immediately, his face collapsed into a pained visage, and he hunched over while grasping his chest. “Ow, ow, the heat!”

A smile crept up Catheya’s face, but she pushed it down and roused her annoyance as she poked him in his side. “Jerk, like I don’t know your Body Tempering Method translates into resistance to this exact environment.”

“I’m sorry, really.” Zac smiled. “You look very pretty today.”

“I’m a sweaty mess,” Catheya huffed, partly mollified. “Well, what do you need me to freeze? The sooner we can leave, the better.”

“Come,” Zac said, grasping her hand as he led her inside. “How did your cultivation session go?”

“Not bad,” Catheya said as she released a content sigh. For some reason, the heat was lower inside the volcano than outside. “I think my seed will be finished in four years.”

“That’s great,” Zac said. “Guess we’re both ahead of schedule.”

“This is the fourth, right?” Catheya asked.

“Well, we’ll see.”

Farther into the mountain, the tunnel grew darker with the heat growing sparser. Catheya soon realized it wasn’t the mountain. Zac had installed cooling arrays in the tunnel, and she felt some sweetness in her chest. He’d probably known she would be hot and miserable by the time she arrived and made some preparations. Twenty minutes later, there was a change in the path. A weak, golden light lit up the tunnel not too far off, and Catheya inwardly braced herself. They were about to reach the molten core.

Then, there was nothing: no life, no fire, no heat. But neither was there any death or cold. There was just nothing, like she stepped out of Heaven’s purview. It was both disconcerting and liberating, and it almost felt like she couldn’t tell where she ended and the air began.

Catheya looked at Zac with confusion, but he only smiled as he led her toward the light. They turned around a bend and found themselves in a room filled with a soft glow. A thick rug covered the ground, a low table where a bottle of chilled wine stood waiting, and lots of pillows. There were no lights or candles, but then none were needed.

The cave simply ended at the opposite side, exposing the room to a breathtaking vista. It was a vast sea of fire releasing innumerable bubbles of life-giving light. The lights slowly rose toward the sky then collapsed just before they reached the volcano’s mouth. It created a beautiful and everchanging ambiance that filled the area.

“What—How?” Catheya whispered as she looked around with confusion. There were no holy beacons, no arrays. She couldn’t sense any energy fluctuations at all. Or rather, she could, but they disappeared right outside the cave. It was like she was standing inside a raging fire, yet the flames somehow missed her. Was it a separate dimension? But there should still be hints of Dao if so.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said that day. How you felt like an outsider,” Zac explained. “So I built this. A way to enjoy the view without relying on flooding the environment with Miasma.”

Catheya wordlessly looked at him, her vision swimming.

Zac awkwardly scratched his chin, like he so often did. “I know it’s just a small room and not really what you meant. I just thought you’d like—”

His words grew indistinct and were then stopped as she pressed her lips against his. Those strong arms enclosed her, filling her with contentment.

“I love it,” Catheya whispered. “I can’t believe you sealed the Heavens for me.”

Til’Siri’s hearts rattled as she stood at attention by the teleportation array. She felt like she was part of history, about to catch a glimpse of the birth of the Era.

“Be careful what you say,” Til’Siri once more reminded her irascible companion. “The Primordial was born in a more brutal era.”

“I know, I know,” Emberstorm said. “Though if you ask me, it’s a waste of time. This old thing is as ancient as the Era itself. I bet she won’t even get accepted by Ultom, no matter how loved by the Heavens she is.”

“Even if it turns out she can’t enter, she’ll still be the leader of our operations here,” Til’Siri countered, hiding the smile that tugged at her lips. Atavism really wasn’t sufficient to temper the unbridled aggressiveness of these Rosefire Beetles, Emberstorm’s inability to overturn fate and seize a seal had left him incredibly irascible. He just needed a small push. “Besides, the ancestors wouldn’t have awoken one of the four remaining Primordials if they weren’t confident she’d be able to participate.”

“Whatever,” Emberstorm muttered. “Bunch of dusty things that don’t understand the age we live in, if you ask me. They were strong, alright, but they were just supersized barbarians without skills or technique.”

“Well, no one asked,” Til’Siri spat. “Now be quiet, or you’ll get us both killed.”

An hour passed until the array finally lit up. Til’Siri smoothed her dress, prompting a derisive snort from the insectoid.

Then, she stepped through, and Til’Siri could barely prevent her ardent expression from collapsing. The Primordial was short and round to the point she was almost a circle. However, she was all muscle and asymmetrical bones, giving off an intensely deadly aura. Her face was flat and unexpressive, completely lacking the graceful features commonly associated with a perfect Atavism. Simply put, she was ugly, incredibly so, with the exception of her eyes. They glowed with purple splendor, and Til’Siri felt like she was looking at the Dao itself.

“We greet the esteemed Primordial!” Til’Siri said with a deep bow, and she inwardly sneered upon seeing that Emberstorm didn’t follow suit.

It looked like her goading had worked.

“So you’re the one they dug out of that deep abyss? The one who’s supposed to lead us without having merit or qualifications?” Emberstorm said. “If you want to lead me, you’ll have to endure my attack.”

The stout creature wordlessly looked at Emberstorm, then slowly reached out her hand. Emberstorm snorted as flames lit up across his body, and a deafening drone made the air crackle. But a frown appeared as the hand kept getting closer. Til’Siri shook her head, feeling her senses were being messed with. It didn’t seem the Primordial’s hand was growing, but rather that the universe shrunk to accommodate her will.

Emberstorm tried to create some distance, but the hand was intractable. A storm of scorching flames erupted on Emberstorm’s body, but they were snuffed like a weak candle as the hand closed around him. The Primordial hadn’t even given him a chance to launch an attack before attacking herself.

“Wait—” Emberstorm screamed, his anger turning into fear. It was too late.

The arm pulled back, and the Primordial put her whole hand into her oversized mouth. Til’Siri shook as she stood rooted in place, sweat pouring down her back as she found the horrifying creature locking eyes with her as she slowly started to chew. A few ghastly crunches were followed by a gulp. Like that, one of the rising stars of the Starbeast Alliance’s swarm had been turned into a snack.

“He dared challenge the natural order without understanding his or my strength,” the creature said. “That is unacceptable.”

Til’Siri could only nod, afraid she’d be targeted next.

“This System has made you all weak and irresolute,” the Primordial continued. “It gives a veneer of order when the only truth is power. I will not kill you today. But you will replace the schemes in your heart with strength if you wish to follow me.”

“Y-yes,” Til’Siri shuddered, knowing her plot had been seen through.

Scheming against this unsealed monster would be impossible. Looking into her eyes put Til’Siri under even greater pressure than meeting her ancestor. Til’Siri should have known better after learning of her origins. About a unique Innate Being who reached the limits of the broken Heaven at the start of the Era. Someone who had slaughtered Supremacies and bathed in their blood.

Someone with the strength and determination to give up her spot at the peak and seal her reincarnation in the river of time, all for a chance to push beyond the limits of the Dao when the Heavens had recovered.

“What about the matter?”

“The local faction is called the Kan’Tanu. They do not have the means to stabilize the Space Gate forcibly, and they are still organizing their armies,” Til’Siri hurriedly said, feeling she’d been given a new lease on life. “On your command, I’ve petitioned the elders to help. Array Masters will arrive in two months with the required materials. Their preliminary report is that it will take another two months at most to finish the process.”

“Good. Today’s universe is too wretched, and the Heavens are spread too thin. I will have to rekindle my memories with blood instead of Dao. Constantly relying on my bloodline is too tiring.”

“What does mistress want to do until then?”

“We continue into the Million Gates,” the Primordial said. “The cosmos is pointing me toward the first key.”

Til’Siri nodded, trying to quell her jealousy. Born from the Dao in the chaotic cauldron of a nascent era, blessed by the Heavens in a way you’d never see today. Having the Dao whisper its secrets into your ear, pointing you down the correct path.

How were others to compete with a lifeform like this?

43

COSMIC INFUSION

“This is the one,” Zac muttered, pushing away the sense of doom as he picked up a withered branch with his free hand.

The Omnitool in his other transformed from its standard rock pick into a scalpel axe. He still lacked six of the seventeen peaks, but he’d found that the tool could already be used for half an hour before it needed to be returned. It was enough for his practice. He could have used the artisanal axes as well, but why bother?

The Omnitool wasn’t just a gadget that could change shape. It was instilled with the essence of [Cosmic Forge] and naturally helped control the extraction process when Zac channeled Void Energy through it. Without it, you’d have to work twice as hard for half the result.

One could argue that it would be better practice not to use the assisting tool, but the Omnitool was an integral part of the crafting process. Not using it would be like a blacksmith not using a furnace or an alchemist not using a cauldron. What was the point?

Zac carefully cut the stem open, making sure to infuse the scar with the illusory engravings of [Cosmic Infusion]. One by one, esoteric runes spread across the branch in the wake of the incision. They almost looked like natural markings left by nature itself, but they were rather the result of an intricate web of Void Energy.

The once clumsy attempts had become far more precise, mostly thanks to the synthetic experience awarded through the visions. Practicing extraction and infusing over the past two years had felt like picking up an old hobby you’d put aside for years. He wasn’t learning, he was re-learning.

With precision came speed, which was just as important for the success of the extraction. Every second that passed after Zac began the process was a second of entropy where the essence of the branch melted away. The quicker the extraction, the more complete the essence you could use for an infusion. If you took too long, the Dao would become flawed, which was like drinking from a poisoned well.

Soon, Zac had cut a scar along the length of the branch. At that point, it floated into the air, hovering vertically over the workbench. Zac’s left hand formed a claw beneath, while the right continuously moved around. One mote of starlight after another—though it’d be more apt to call it deathlight—appeared on his fingertips and entered the branch.

It had taken months of trial and error to get the ball rolling, but Zac had long since explored the ways [Cosmic Infusion] worked and didn’t work in the current era. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work with either Cosmic Energy or Miasma. He had to solely use his Void Energy to engrave and infuse the innumerable seals that made up the first chapter of [Cosmic Forge].

However, the method did work with his Dao. The method would function without any ‘Cosmic Truths’ as the First People called it, but Dao did elevate the technique just like how it worked with skills. The extraction became more efficient, as was the infusion. Zac even suspected he could add some of his own comprehension to the process, though he hadn’t reached that point yet. Unfortunately, using Dao only worked when Zac worked with materials of matching attunements. In other words, items crafted for himself would be better than items he crafted for people with different paths.

It wasn’t much of a loss, considering he didn’t have any plans to craft on a large scale. He was content so long as he could improve his gear and create useful tools. It was just a welcome bonus if he also could improve the gear of those close to him.

Finally, a glistening grey liquid, an intangible essence taking the shape of sap, appeared on the bottom of the branch. With other items, the essence would appear in other forms. With each drop that fell, Zac caught it in the air with his prepared claw.

The technique of [Cosmic Forge] was simply magical. It was based on an unfathomably deep understanding of the interaction between essence and materia. Truthfully, Zac had some trouble understanding exactly what essence was. But essentially, it was the ‘magic’ inside Natural Treasures. Whatever allowed them to help cultivators gain attributes, open nodes, or even improve their affinities. [Cosmic Forge] took this magic and crammed it into a weapon.

You could liken the essence locked inside a Natural Treasure to a ship moored on a dock with thousands of ropes. [Cosmic Infusion] severed those ropes without damaging or changing the ship, until it was completely detached. At that point, the ship would naturally sail away. In the second step, Zac could steer the ship into the recipient item. There, the opposite process would happen. He would create thousands of new ropes and moor the vessel at the new docks.

Of course, the analogy wasn’t 100% exact. The structural integrity and properties of a Natural Treasure were almost completely dependent on the energy and Dao inside. When disconnecting the essence from the Natural Treasure, you also had to keep the material stable until you extracted what you needed. The shallow scars covering his hands were a painful reminder of what would happen if you lost control.

The extraction was difficult on its own, but the actual infusion was another beast altogether. Zac thought it’d be like building a tower, placing another floor atop the foundation he’d just built. Part of that was true, but there was also another dimension to it. Infusing multiple layers of essence into a weapon also felt like packing a suitcase.

The first couple of layers weren’t too taxing. There was a lot of room available in the suitcase. Even if you made mistakes, you could comfortably place the items inside. But the more mistakes, the quicker the suitcase would fill up. By the point you reached the later stages of the Cosmic Cycle, the suitcase was already filled to the brim. Unfortunately, you couldn’t just take things out and repack the suitcase. At least not until he mastered [Cosmic Extraction], though Zac wasn’t sure that was how the method worked.

Luckily, there were many things Zac could do to make the process more efficient. The most obvious was to improve his skill in using [Cosmic Forge]. The higher his skill, the more efficient the infusion. But that was just part of the equation. Improving your technique was the first of the three pillars you needed to maximize the result of [Cosmic Infusion]. Or maximizing the result of most crafting methods, really.

The second pillar was a comprehensive understanding of materials. The better Zac understood the materials, both the treasure to extract and the tool you wanted to infuse, the better the result. Each material was unique and required him to adjust the extraction process slightly. Like how he needed to cut a precise incision in this branch and extract the essence from within. There were few shortcuts in accumulating this sort of comprehension. It required endless trial and error. He could somewhat sidestep that requirement for items resonating with his Dao, but practice makes perfect.

The final pillar of crafting was the recipe. Some pills required dozens, even thousands of herbs. But would you throw them all into the cauldron blindly? Of course not. Concocting a pill required exact order and timing to produce the optimal result. Any small changes and the pill might be reduced to toxic gunk.

It was the same for [Cosmic Infusion]. The results would be vastly superior if he followed a ‘recipe.’ For example, the Life-attuned [Sundew Stalks] followed by the Beast Core of a Transcendence Larva could set a stable foundation to add more infusions. Reverse the order, and you’d have a mess on your hands. The interlocked essence would grow so unstable he could only add one or two infusions from that point.

[Cosmic Forge] didn’t contain any finished recipes for creating multi-cycle infusions. Instead, it contained comprehensive sets of rules and concepts that allowed you to build a sturdy theoretical foundation. From there, Zac could either work on instinct or create recipes to allow him to craft High-quality items repeatedly. Zac was far from mastering these theories, but he had already started to get an intuitive sense of what materials were needed for proper progression. Of course, that was only for his own Daos so far.

In addition, he’d discovered a few tricks that helped. The most basic rule of [Cosmic Infusion] was that the first cycle only required Low-quality items. That alone was quite impressive—the ability to create a Middle-quality item with only Low-quality materials. And that was nothing compared to the fourth cycle—the ability to reliably create Supreme-quality tools with only Peak-quality materials.

It wasn’t unheard of for a skilled craftsman, but you almost needed the stars to align to accomplish something like that. They’d have to enter a temporary state of enlightenment like when he created [Pillar of Desolation]. And even then, it required a hefty amount of luck. Of course, the skill and planning required to accomplish something like that were undoubtedly staggering even for a top-tier method like [Cosmic Forge]. Even the quest for [Cosmic Extraction] only asked him to infuse two cycles and create a High-quality item.

Interestingly, Zac had long found that Low-quality materials were not just the minimum for the first cycle, they were the optimal choice. Zac had mountains of High-grade materials to practice with, but they contained too much essence and energies that were too complex. Using those kinds of materials right off the bat increased the complexity and difficulty without improving the result.

It was better to start at the bottom of the pole. Dirt-cheap attuned materials you’d only buy in bulk were optimal choice for the first couple of infusions. From there, you’d use better and better Low-quality materials until you used something right at the threshold of Medium-quality for the final infusion of the cycle.

Small streams floated from the essence blob in Zac’s hand toward the axe waiting on the workstation. They formed one mysterious pattern after another until the whole weapon was covered. At that point, the axe floated into the air and turned over, allowing Zac to coat the back. Sweat poured down Zac’s forehead as he strained his soul to maintain control.

[Cosmic Forge] had confirmed his energy control with Void Energy was extremely high in contrast to his control over Cosmic Energy and Miasma. But using his Dao to complement the process put pressure on even his Three Fates Soul. To perfectly utilize his Dao, he had to infuse every single rune with a separate stream of Mental Energy. His current limit was fifty-four streams—twenty-seven streams from each of his two souls. Any more than that, and he’d get so slow and clumsy that it would do more harm than good. Still, it was a great step forward, and the practice even helped him with his Dao Braids.

Of course, he’d already found an alternative route in that regard.

A full hour passed as the branch grew increasingly withered while the axe started radiating an oppressive aura. Suddenly, the weapon released a weak shockwave that turned the branch into ash. A smile spread across Zac’s face as he grasped the axe out of the air.

A full Cosmic Cycle. The unadorned practice axe emitted an ominous aura of Death, and it was clearly sturdier and sharper than before. Scanning it with his senses found no major imperfections. The interlaced layers of [Cosmic Forge] were mostly harmonious, though too many mistakes had been made for it to reach a second Cosmic Cycle. It was only halfway to finishing the quest, but it was still great progress. It had taken two full years reaching this point, though most of that time had been spent looking for items to feed his Omnitool.

Swinging it a few times, he felt far more in tune with the weapon than before.

“What about now?” Zac asked into the air.

“I told you. No bounty,” an exasperated Null answered. “None of your Void methods, no matter if we’re discussing your Body Tempering Manual or the Craftsman heritage, are worth any Mana. And no, I don’t know why. I applied and got denied. Try inventing normal things instead if you want that kind of bounty.”

“Well, worth a shot,” Zac grunted.

Having reached this point, it was time to finally focus on that ominous feeling. It was like a blade had been trained at his neck for weeks, but he couldn’t pinpoint the source. At first, he’d thought he was being paranoid since things had run so smoothly lately. But the feeling wouldn’t go away, and he could tell something was afoot.

He walked out of his workshop at the bottom of Mount Illumination and began his ascent. As he walked, he opened his Status Screen to make sure he hadn’t gained any Mana for creating an attuned axe. No changes.

[Mana: 41,023]

He’d barely averaged 1,000 Mana a month since getting his hands on [Cosmic Forge]. And that was after running himself ragged. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it was quite a pathetic haul compared to getting almost 20,000 Mana in less than two months. Certainly, part of the reason for the slow climb was spending a decent chunk of Mana on the simulation array and Enlightenment Chambers to speed up his comprehension of [Cosmic Infusion].

However, the biggest explanation was that some of the zones had been beyond his skill to deal with reliably. Red Zones were no joke, even for him. Getting a Mana domain had helped a bit. Still, it wasn’t like a low-level barrier was enough to keep a Red Zone’s incredibly powerful and unpredictable environments at bay. Besides, he had only visited zones that weren’t aligned with his path.

The worst of the bunch was the Chrono Well, where he’d lost over a month’s worth of entrance fees without finishing the quest or finding an item for his Omnitool. He’d lost almost 5,000 Mana that month alone, and it wasn’t the only month where he’d tallied a loss.

Furthermore, the Mana fee was starting to get noticeable now that he’d entered the fourth echelon. It currently cost him 400 Mana a month just to retain his Mana domain. It was no wonder so few managed to go beyond 100,000 Mana. You had to push yourself quite hard to just break even, especially considering it got harder to earn Mana from duels at the higher echelons. One mistake that left you bedridden could cost you half an echelon’s worth of Mana.

Still, the fourth echelon in just over two years was well ahead of schedule. Catheya and Ogras were only on the second, even if they’d worked hard on both missions and bounties. They were still making improvements thanks to the various opportunities in the Perennial Vastness, and they were getting better at using [Perennial Transformations] by the day.

Zac spent the next hour climbing back to the peak of Mount Illumination, inwardly grumbling at Null’s refusal to let him set up teleportation arrays at the foot or on the other mountains.

“You have a message from Kruta the Second,” Null said just as Zac reached the crest.

“Really?” Zac said with surprise.

Zac had kept in contact with the barbarian after they met in the Quarry. Kruta had come for a duel and to gawk when the rumors of his ability to swap between two races started to spread. Zac’s plan to pull in another round of Mana could only be considered half a success. His blueprint was just too eye-catching, so the guests realized what was going on after just a couple of duels when he visited Vastness City in his human form. The only reason he even earned 2,500 Mana from the scheme was that many, like Kruta, were curious about his situation and wanted to test the novel ability through duels.

Kruta had also joined him for two outings into Orange Zone battlefields Zac visited to recoup some of his Mana losses. The barbarian almost exclusively stayed in those regions because of his path, and it turned out he had a very useful ability. He was a Faith cultivator calling upon the spirits of his tribe’s ancestors. A soul whisp of some old warlord lived in his body, resulting in him being adopted by a warchief from the main tribe.

It was an interesting cultivation path, but that wasn’t why Kruta was such an asset on the ancient battlefields. The barbarian could actually commune with the lingering wills to some degree. Occasionally, the fallen soldiers took a liking to him and shared some secrets. Their two missions hadn’t resulted in any Supreme treasure, but both had walked away with massive rewards from the quest.

Had Kruta found a new opportunity? Was this why he’d been so unsettled over the past days?

“Buddy, I have big news,” the message began. “Something is happening in the Stand of Saeward. The spirits are stirring like they’re about to rise from the grave, and weird tremors are releasing scary energies. I think something big is about to happen within a week at most. I don’t dare go alone, but maybe if I had a helping hand… You up for an adventure?”

Zac thoughtfully looked at the Communication Crystal for a few minutes. This seemed like a perfect opportunity, but his danger sense was tingling. He could almost feel fate gathering in the Stand of Saeward even if he’d never been to the restricted battlefield. Danger and opportunity appearing hand in hand. He’d never had this feeling when visiting the other Red Zones, even if a few of them had almost cost him his life.

There was something special about this one. Zac hesitated for over twenty minutes before finally recording a response. Conflict was the final key of the puzzle to forming his Cosmic Core, and items that could match the [Calamity Core] and the [Void Engine] didn’t appear every day. Not a single item he’d fed his Omnitool over the past two years was a match to those two treasures. He couldn’t back down now that an opportunity had presented itself.

Thankfully, he had a week. He’d trust his guts. This excursion would be exceedingly dangerous for whatever reason, so Zac needed to ensure he was prepared. His gaze slowly turned toward the empty patch of land on the opposite side of the peak. A great treasure right within reach.

It was time.

44

TRANSIENCE

Zac’s first entry into the hostile Red Zones was the Imperial Spire. The incredibly high mountain had seemed like a perfect place to start his collection of items. Even then, he had found himself at an impasse after pushing himself close to the peak. The final 2,500 meters were impossible to climb, at least for Zac, who lacked a Dao of Gravity.

So he started looking for a treasure at the maximum altitude he could stomach. But even after sixteen days, he had come up empty-handed except for a few more orbs. That was when he’d been given a poignant reminder of the importance of Luck.

He’d just changed form and applied a new set of talcum on his hands as day turned to night. The dust from the chalk had made him sneeze, prompting him to turn to the side. At that exact moment, he’d seen an odd flicker in the mountain wall a few hundred meters down. It looked like a shadow appearing out of nowhere. But the shadow was gone a second later, and the spot looked the same as the rest of the mountain.

Zac trusted his eyes and his gut and spent the next six hours reaching the spot, but he couldn’t find anything. Then, a few hours later, night turned to day, and Zac was surprised to see the wall suddenly disappear. The shift between night and day had deactivated a natural formation that exposed a hidden alcove. Inside, a small flower swayed. A flower even heavier than the Revolution Orbs that became the first fodder for the Omnitool.

Accruing Low to High-quality material was just a matter of having land, time, and resources. Peak materials were mostly things you had to take some risks to farm. However, materials considered beyond the “peak” could only be found by chance. And chance was governed by Luck and Providence.

Until that point, Zac hadn’t felt the need to rush himself when it came to Mount Illumination. Breaking into the ghost temple seemed incredibly dangerous, and he already had a lot on his plate. He’d pick up the Dharmic Treasure before leaving. But things changed after inheriting [Cosmic Forge]. Zac suddenly needed to brave at least seventeen dangerous Red Zones, each with environments he’d normally have avoided in favor of realms better suited to his path.

The difference between being lucky and unlucky in a Red Zone wasn’t just a matter of thousands of Mana and finding valuable treasures or not. It could be the difference between life and death. Zac obviously wouldn’t trust his life to something as flakey as Luck, but it was better to have it than not. He definitely could have used some extra Luck inside the mind-bending maze of the Chrono Well.

Since then, Zac had started to prepare an assault on the hidden temple. He’d researched Mount Illumination and Heart Cultivation to understand the threat better. He’d climbed dozens of neighboring mountains to temper himself against different expressions of the Dharma. He’d been further tempered by near-death experiences, solidifying and improving his stability beyond what he gained from the Void Varja breakthrough.

Even his long crafting sessions seemed to have helped solidify his heart. Maintaining a Void State helped him control the Void Energy more fluently, and it removed any errant thoughts. The whole universe was pushed away except for the self and the materials. There wasn’t much point in waiting to gather more Mana, either. The protective environment of his manor didn’t stretch beyond the outer gates, and the trial itself seemed designed to circumvent the Mana domain’s protection.

He still would have preferred to wait a bit longer, but it looked like it was time to collect.

Zac made sure all his preparations were in place as he walked to the mansion’s gate leading onto the peak. He smiled a bit as he crossed the pebbled courtyard. The patterns almost looked like skill fractals by this point, even a Dao Tapestry representing his path. The Sangha’s love and the Dao of Samsara were greatly muted already. He’d say his courtyard was already halfway attuned to him. Even Catheya and Ogras could make short visits, though they couldn’t leave his manor without risking damage to their Dao Hearts.

He reached the gate, and it only took a steadying breath for his view to change. The ghost temple looked the same as usual. To this day, the immense Buddha and its terrifying aura hadn’t returned. But would things stay that way? Doubtful. Zac began his approach, relying only on his conviction to withstand the coruscating waves of Dharma and Samsara.

The peak was rapidly coming alive, with new features appearing with every step he took. It felt like paradise was descending on the mundane plane, but Zac was unmoved by the call of the cosmos. He was the solitary rock in a river, letting the waters flow by him.

Soon, Zac reached the midway point. The spiritual pressure was intense, as was the crushing weight of the Dao itself. But Zac maintained his speed. He’d already been able to reach this point during his first attempt. And while he hadn’t made any huge breakthroughs since then, he had made many small improvements that accumulated into something substantial.

Zac continued toward the small temple that felt impossibly vast from the immense Dharmic aura it exuded. Dozens of Bodhisattvas and Devas lined the side temples, and the chants of thousands of monks reverberated across the peak. Zac couldn’t make out any words, but their tones rose and fell, forming a grand cycle that wanted to drag Zac’s soul out of his body. If he let them, he’d enter the cycle of Samsara.

The main temple was lined by eight towering figures, four to each side of the stairs leading into the shrine. Oddly enough, Zac couldn’t make out what they depicted. It was like his brain couldn’t take in their forms. Besides, he didn’t dare look at them long. Each emitted an intense aura of holiness like they were the embodiment of truth and virtue.

When they first appeared, they resonated as the final guardians of this trial. But as Zac continued his approach, he started doubting whether that was the truth. Were they the guardians, or were they the goal? The distance between Zac and the eight was filled with the unavoidable sea of Samsara, and the chains of Karma Zac had accumulated acted as sinking weights. To reach the statues and step onto the right path, you’d have to sever the past.

No! Zac shook his head with horror from having his perception twisted even when he held on to the Void of his self. For a moment, the statues emitted an aura of pure devilishness rather than holiness.

Yet, he kept trudging on. Each step was a rebirth, where the Dao of Samsara tried to wash away his past and urge him embrace the new. Zac refused to let go.

“Kayar-Elu. Root Compact. Six Profundity Empire,” Zac muttered, his monotone voice almost like a chant.

One word after another emerged from his mouth. Places, people, and concepts which held a special place in his heart. His words lacked the rhythmic cadence of Buddhist Scripture, but they created a counterweight against the immense pressure on his path and self. They became the anchors preventing him from being swept away, from giving up his self in exchange for liberation.

Each step felt like an eternity, but he’d eventually crossed three-quarters of the distance. The peak was gone already, replaced by an endless square. The gargantuan avatar still hadn’t appeared, but Zac could feel a vast presence form in the sky. But it wasn’t the Buddha. The groan of ancient wood joined the chants, and Zac’s mind shuddered as he saw a huge wheel appear behind the temple, stretching hundreds of meters into the sky.

The wheel of Samsara.

The moment it appeared, Zac knew he couldn’t hold back any longer. The wheel radiated ultimate truth and finality, and the whole Buddhist complex came alive. The Dao Surge, the Dharma roared, and the Void of Zac’s self teetered on the brink of collapse. Six array disks appeared, forming a protective circle around Zac just before a storm of Dao came crashing down from the wheel. They shuddered but held on, supplied and nourished by Zac’s Dao.

Meanwhile, Zac took out the [Mind’s Eye Agate] and urgently fastened it to his back. The crystal was already covered with a golden web of fine chains, and over fifty small array disks were fastened at its intersections. The crystal groaned ominously, and a few cracks appeared but managed to soothe Zac’s heart and soul. The storm stabilized a moment later, but the danger of the peak had increased by 50% since the wheel’s appearance.

Zac’s perception started to bend. His mind told him the eight statues were the wheel, and the wheel was the statues. They occupied different spaces, yet they were one. The wheel slowly turned. Zac’s heart shuddered. He didn’t have much time. The arrays had given him a window of opportunity, and the temple was only fifty meters away. He took a few hurried steps but his vision lurched at the ten-meter line.

The statues towered over him to his left and right. They were only three meters tall, yet they felt like mountains looming over and pressuring him. Zac hesitated before gritting his teeth, and a small crystal appeared in his hand. The pressure drastically decreased, but Zac looked down at the [Void Engine] with worry. It could subvert the Dao and Energy, but he’d long since learned it wasn’t without limit. It would slowly weaken if left unattended in too rich an environment.

And when pressured by the Buddhist Sangha? It would only last seconds. Time was of the essence, so Zac hurried his steps. The aura of providence was a beacon in the raging ocean of Samsara. Just ten meters away.

Unfortunately, Zac found another problem just as he reached the top of the stairs.

He could finally see the interiors of the temple. Until this point, they had been obscured like the statues he’d just passed. Now, it was on wide display, but that didn’t help Zac much. The temple was only thirty meters wide, but its interiors were the size of a city. It was a huge temple beyond compare, with hundreds of enormous shrines and statues erected.

Far in the distance on the opposite side, Zac could vaguely make out the enormous Buddha he’d seen in the sky. It sat at the main position of the temple, mostly obscured by a thick haze of incense smoke. Zac couldn’t even see its face as it was so far up in the sky, but he felt a huge presence staring down at him. In an instant, dozens of cracks appeared across the [Mind’s Eye Agate], and the [Void Engine] flickered ominously.

Luckily, the feeling only lasted a second, and Zac breathed out as he took a step forward, still silently mumbling his anchoring words. But just as he was about to step into the gate, he found himself unable to so much as move a finger. Two huge Niō had appeared to the sides of the entrance, each looking down at him with scornful eyes. And then they spoke.

“IS THE COSMOS ETERNAL?”

“IS THE COSMOS TRANSIENT?”

The words rumbled like an angry sea or claps of thunder. The words were the Dao itself, and Zac groaned as a deluge of impressions swept through him. A universe moving toward infinity, slowly growing with each beat. A universe crumbling, each beat a little weaker than the last.

The two questions reverberated through Zac’s mind, the words only increasing in ferocity and power. There were more questions somehow superimposed on those two, clamoring for dominion over Zac’s soul. The words felt like grindstones intent on grinding his self to dust, sending a pure stream of consciousness into the wheel of Samsara.

Zac was about to go mad. His consciousness couldn’t withstand the timeframes and concepts conveyed. His Daos were shuddering, his path bending under the strain. The talismans were even less capable of withstanding the onslaught, all turning to dust without dampening the roar. Orange splinters fell like rain from his back, and golden links failed. Only the [Void Engine] was unscathed, but it was essentially drained, so he quickly put it away before it was damaged.

Without his treasures, he was as exposed as a candle in the wind and felt the Dharma breach the Void in his heart. A primal fury took hold in Zac’s heart and pushed it back. He could tell those were questions without answers, traps meant to destroy his path. He wouldn’t give in. He wouldn’t be broken by something like this.

“I don’t care!” Zac roared as he unleashed his bloodline and opened the floodgates to his Void Energy.

Zac couldn’t tell whether it was the determination in his words or the outburst of energy that created a massive shockwave. It was both tangible and intangible, spreading out with him as an epicenter. Large cracks appeared on the Niō, and Zac could suddenly move. He was about to flee before he was caught again, but a flicker ahead threw those plans in disarray.

The insides of the ghost temple had become unstable, flickering back and forth between two vastly different scenes. One contained the endless halls and the enormous Buddha, while the other was much simpler. It showed a normal temple that consecrated a chest without any engravings. No deity was displayed, but Zac sensed a hair-raising aura from the box.

In front of the shrine were three unadorned wooden cups, each holding a different fruit. Zac didn’t know why, but it was as though a world hid in each of those fruits, and Zac’s body screamed with both hunger and fear upon smelling their aroma. Finally, there was a small tray on the ground in front of the three bowls, upon which a string of Buddhist beads lay. It didn’t look exactly like the prayer beads he’d seen in the vision upon first arriving at Mount Illumination, but it wasn’t far-off.

The temple represented a power far beyond what he could deal with, but he could not back down when his target was just five meters away. He gritted his teeth and shot forward when the gateway led to the simpler temple. The temple tried to resist his entry, but he activated [Void Zone] to force a path.

The whole temple shook, and the constant hymns gained an aura of reproach that bore down on him like a mountain. It was just like when he first tried to cheat with his Bloodline Talent to cross the peak, and Zac realized his Void Energy wouldn’t last more than a second under this kind of suppression. But the restrictions no longer held him, and a lot could be done in a second.

Zac leapt forward and snatched the string of beads from its plate. The temple shook as reproach turned into righteous wrath, and Zac groaned as bloody tears appeared across his body. The temple was trying to switch back to those vast halls consecrated by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, but the presence of [Void Zone] acted like a lynchpin keeping the reality in place. Somehow, the damage was transferred through the Bloodline Talent to Zac himself.

The fruits and the chest still stood there, but Zac sighed as he jumped out of the temple gates. They looked like great treasures, but Zac could tell they were traps. Dealing with the Sangha was to dance on a tightrope. You had to know when to back down, or you’d eventually get consumed. The world shuddered, and Zac found himself standing at the gates of his manor, looking at the ghost temple across the peak.

The familiar view made Zac’s mind short-circuit. There were no statues, no wheels in the sky. All was calm and tranquil, with not so much as a ripple in the atmosphere. He’d been prepared to fight his way back across the peak, but it suddenly felt like he hadn’t even set out.

Had it all been a dream?

The odd disconnect only lasted a moment before the smarting tears across his body confirmed his experience had been all-too-real. It was further confirmed by the sound of glass shattering as the agate on his back shattered, turning into a fine dust that spread around his feet. Zac sighed as he looked down at the sand. The [Mind Eye’s Agate] had been a silent companion for over a decade, always guarding his back when he cultivated his soul. Today, it had made the ultimate sacrifice to keep him sane.

Zac’s eyes turned to the string of beads in his right hand with mixed emotions. Hopefully, it’d be worth it.

45

LUCKY BEADS

Zac was curious about his haul, but one thing took precedence. He closed his eyes and started scanning his body for any wrongness. Occasionally, Zac activated [Void Zone] and would even start the first stance of the third layer of [Void Vajra Sublimation].

He’d seen just how deadly the secrets kept within the ghost temples were, and Zac knew he’d cheated by the end. With how abruptly everything ended, Zac wondered if he’d been caught in a trap the moment he left the small temple. And even if he hadn’t, he had to stabilize his soul and mental state. Only an hour later did Zac feel fully confident he was really back in his manor and not caught in a Heart Illusion. Neither were his Hidden Nodes acting up, which hopefully meant he hadn’t been marked or cursed.

“Null, did you see how I returned to the gates?” Zac asked.

“No idea. I was suppressed the moment you began crossing the peak.”

Zac slowly nodded, glancing at the distant temple that still stood there like nothing had happened. Was that perhaps the point? Sending him back here was a way to sow a seed of doubt in his heart, where he’d feel uncertain about what was real and what was a dream. Something like that could gnaw at one’s psyche for years, eventually turning into a Heart Demon that’d leave him exposed to future attacks.

The energies on the peak had returned to normal, but Zac still felt that terrifying Buddha staring at him from within the ghost temple. Standing in the gateway left him exposed, so he hurried back into his manor before his gaze turned to the beads. The prayer band he’d seen in his vision only had eighteen beads, but his one had exactly fifty-four. It was much too long to make a bracelet, appearing to be something you’d wear around your neck.

Most of the beads looked the same as the ones in the vision, made of wood and alternating between natural dark brown and painted black. The original bracelet also had one red bead, whereas this one had three silver ones interspaced between every seventeenth-bead cycle. Most importantly, the beads emitted a mysterious aura of providence.

It wasn’t the Dao of Karma or Samsara, but more like the intangible feeling of fathering fate Zac had sometimes sensed since his effective Luck surpassed 1,000. Thankfully, it didn’t contain a sense of danger like the ominous sensation he’d carried the past two weeks. The beads simply produced calm ripples that could only be sensed with one’s heart. Zac had never seen a Fate-augmenting treasure before, but the prayer beads looked just like he’d expected. He only hesitated a few seconds before he put them around his neck.

He’d risked his life to get his hands on this thing, so not using it wasn’t an option. Especially since it didn’t emit the slightest hint of Dharma. The beads gave off a soothing rattle as they settled, and a mysterious ripple entered his body. The mountain’s incessant drone disappeared for a moment, but Zac could tell that wasn’t the main use of the beads. The sense of danger had grown clearer. If it had felt like an indistinct looming cloud before, it was now a sword squarely pointed at his back.

Zac opened his Status Screen to make sure, but the row detailing his Luck hadn’t changed. Zac wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t like his other tools altered his Status Screen in any way. The exact effect of the beads was difficult to quantify, but Zac didn’t believe they acted like an increase to his effective Luck, at least not in the way he expected. He had gained significant boosts to his attributes before, and the experience wasn’t like this.

It felt more like the beads acted like a translator and amplifier of the intangible feeling his Luck generated. For some reason, he was almost certain another guest was targeting him now. Before, he hadn’t been sure and felt it could have been related to some danger hiding in the Stand of Saeward. Unfortunately, the improvement wasn’t enough to give him a suspect.

Was it Kruta? Was he trying to lead him into an ambush with his message? Or had he become an unwitting pawn? After all, it was no secret that Zac had a Branch of the War Axe, and a big event on a conflict-based battlefield had a high chance of drawing him out. Zac shook his head, putting the matter aside. Perhaps the sensation would grow stronger after he left his secluded mansion.

Getting a better understanding of the [Lucky Beads], as he’d named the prayer band long ago, Zac absolutely felt the trade-off was worth it. The [Mind’s Eye Agate] had been a huge help for his Soul Cultivation, but its usefulness had been, unfortunately, reaching its end. Its calming and stabilizing effect wasn’t needed since he’d begun cultivating his heart—he had no problem entering a powerful meditative state with a single breath.

The same was true for the Mental Energy it emitted. It wasn’t enough for the fourth layer of the [Nine Reincarnations Manual]. Zac had everything needed to practice the next reincarnation, it just required way too much energy. It was essentially useless practicing the method until he got a Cosmic Core, and by that point, the agate would have been too low-graded to help.

Zac still hurried back to the manor gate, and a small wind kicked up as Zac dragged the dust from the [Mind’s Eye Agate] into a container. It had lost much of its spirituality, but perhaps he’d find some use for it in the future. He was about to return to his study, but he noticed the prayer beads were gone.

“What the hell?” Zac swore.

He entered a Void State and breathed out in relief upon seeing the beads were back. However, Zac almost swore again when he found he couldn’t touch them. The beads were as intangible as the ghost temples, refusing to blend with the real world. Did that mean he wouldn’t be able to take them off in the future?

“The Sangha’s gifts aren’t always easy to decline, huh?” Null giggled.

“You knew this would happen?” Zac asked.

“Nope,” the guide said. “But I did know treasures dealing with Fate are generally a bit odd. Most have restrictions and unusual, or even dangerous, side effects.”

“You’re saying this might be a cursed item?”

“No, it should be something good. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been placed as a hidden prize at a top-tier starting location. Not all of them come with drawbacks.”

Zac thoughtfully nodded, an idea coming to him. He activated [Void Zone], prompting the beads to reappear. At the same time, Zac felt their effect drastically weaken. He tried taking them off and it worked without issue. Only then did he equip them again and let them return to their illusory state.

Having dealt with everything, Zac spent the next couple of hours further stabilizing his mind and going over his next step. Knowing he was being targeted didn’t change his opinion about heading to the Stand of Saeward. On the contrary, it only increased his desire to go. If someone was planning on killing him, what better place to deal with the threat than a battlefield rife with the Dao of Conflict? He’d essentially have a home-field advantage.

Still, Zac wouldn’t have felt such a palpable sense of danger if the plot didn’t have a real chance of doing him in. Gaining the beads hadn’t changed that fact, so Zac needed to prepare something else. It was a bit early, but he saw no better opinion. Whoever targeted him had probably investigated him thoroughly. He had hidden some of his cards well, like the Remnants, but he still felt exposed. Zac was in the light while they hid in the dark, and some of these guests had incredible means.

It was better to add some new tools to his belt, so Zac approached the teleportation array. This time, Zac turned into a wiry human he’d killed last year in a Red Zone, and he even wore the assassin’s items before activating the teleporter. A familiar bridge appeared on the other side of the gate, and Zac entered the Keys of Ascension. Zac inwardly grimaced at the thought of spending 500 Mana an hour, but he expressionlessly crossed the bridge.

The price was steep, but how could some Mana compare to his life?

He soon reached the odd construct and infused the Daos of Conflict and Life. Meanwhile, he imprinted the purpose of his visit and held onto it as he entered the confusing maze of twisted dimensions. This time, he wasn’t led to a fiery temple. Instead, he found himself in an abandoned square under a tumultuous sky. Judging by the deep scars on the walls, it had either been a battlefield or a sparring area. Perhaps a dueling spot where warriors fought to the death.

Even if the warriors were gone, there was an intense lingering aura of Conflict. It far eclipsed the Bloodwind Planet’s atmosphere, though it lacked the corrosive bloodthirst you encountered on most battlefields. The truths were pure, aiming right at the heart of Conflict, and Zac felt a primal urge to start swinging his axe as he looked at the scars.

Conflict was not the only truth that held sway in the small square. It was completely overgrown, with hundreds of vines covering the walls and ground. No two vines looked the same, but they all shared one feature. They radiated a terrifying amount of life force.

Usually, his Draugr vision carrying over to his human form was a boon, but today it was a detriment. The vines were almost blinding, like their insides were filled with liquid Life. The plants slithered and danced like snakes. It mostly seemed random, but they occasionally formed complex patterns that triggered something in Zac’s mind. They mimicked the truths of Conflict in the scars, occasionally creating echoes of Zac’s path.

Only a small circle in the middle was cleared out from the vines. It was the same size as the invisible fire from his previous visit. Though there was nothing of the sort, just a densely engraved gemstone floating in the center, an emerald that had seemingly absorbed the environmental Daos for millions of years.

Zac had always been curious whether the Keys of Ascension had all these rooms ready to go or if it generated them with his Daos as a blueprint. Seeing the cultivation chamber, Zac leaned toward the latter. It just felt too attuned to his purposes for it to be happenstance.

He took a step forward, and a raging storm of impressions filled Zac’s mind. Each scar was a well of endless truth, and every vine suddenly told him a story. Some spoke of valor, of victory. Others of brutality and bloodshed. Some even spoke of defeat but contained an iron will to rise again. Zac wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating, but it looked like the dancing vines recreated battles between those who had left the marks.

His mind was filled with the Dao, and the atmosphere urged him on. Every step filled him with the inspiration of a hundred battles, and every breath came with a cleansing wave that swept away all his confusion and hesitation. Soon, he reached the central circle and spread his Soul Sense through the whole square. The vines were almost putting on a show, leading him toward the answer he’d been looking for.

Zac had been resistant until now, wondering if he was acting too soon. But he wasn’t. This little square was the final key to the puzzle. It was time for him to create a skill from scratch. And it would be for his human side.

To this day, there was undeniably something missing in the skillset of Edge of Arcadia: it completely lacked any integration with Vivi. In contrast, he’d just gotten [Love’s Bond] when evolving to E-grade, and it had been a major inspiration to Fetters of Desolation. His first skill, [Blighted Cut], even required him to use chains.

His two combat styles had been harmonized after figuring out his path in the Orom World, but the result meshed better with his Draugr class. Since day one, Alea and her chains had been an integral part of his Draugr toolkit. Meanwhile, Vivi was a much later addition.

He’d barely stepped into the path of Pure Life when he evolved, and it’d be years before he crystallized his Evolutionary path. In other words, Zac wanted to add a skill that incorporated the thoughts and concepts of how his Evolutionary Stance used armaments. Doing so would have multiple benefits. First of all, it would better tune his skillset, and thus class options, to his path. Secondly, it would allow him to create something that was missing in his class.

A persistent skill.

Edge of Arcadia was currently carried by a couple of incredibly destructive skills with long cooldowns. Hit fast, hit hard, and leave nothing behind. But when he’d expended [Arcadia’s Judgement], [Rapturous Divide], and [Arcadian Crusade], he didn’t have much to rely on except [Nature’s Edge] and his high mobility with [Earthstrider] and [Ancestral Woods]. A persistent skill would broaden his toolkit significantly.

He wasn’t planning on shifting the focus of the class, though. Zac still liked Edge of Arcadia’s explosive nature; it suited his personality. He rather wanted to form a persistent skill that filled the same function as Vivi. To restrict and force openings. After all, his opponents were only growing more powerful, and it was becoming harder and harder to land his finishing blows. Life and Conflict. Rebirth and destruction. Zac didn’t want a cage like [Profane Seal]. He wanted a tidal wave of violence that cut off all escape.

Zac had tinkered with a Skill Fractal for almost a decade since he started working on his blueprint. Some of the Lost Plane lake water had gone into setting a foundation, and he’d filled in the gaps over the years since. Now that he sat surrounded by the warrior vines, something crystallized. It wasn’t exactly what he’d planned for, but it was close. And better. Zac didn’t hesitate at all in following the surge of inspiration. This was why he was ready to pay so much, to the point he risked being pushed down an echelon. This was a chance to push his skill to become something uniquely terrifying and deadly.

In fact, he wanted to go even further.

Two inlaid boxes appeared in Zac’s lap. Inside one was a slightly dried mushroom he’d found in the caves at the bottom of the Twilight Chasm. It looked like it was dying, but it exuded a vast aura of Life. Not only that, it voraciously swallowed the ambient energy in the square to rapidly regenerate.

The other box held a single stalk of grass. It was almost half a meter long and looked more like a sword than an herb. Zac felt like he would be split apart just from looking at it, and the vines near the circle shied away. At the same time, his blood and adrenaline surged like he’d swallowed a berserking treasure. Every cell in his body urged him to take action, to grab the stalk and split the Heavens themselves.

The stalk was one of the best Natural Treasures Kruta had found during his travels on the battlefields. Kruta had been worried about his insufficient funds after missing out on the Fate Kernel, so Zac had taken the opportunity to buy the stalk and some other Conflict-attuned materials. It helped improve his stockpiles of Conflict-attuned materials, which were vastly inferior to his accumulations for Life and Death. Zac had initially planned on keeping the stalk as a main material for his Core Formation, but he realized the stalk had another use—to force inspiration.

Two minutes passed, and the mushroom had recovered to its original state after having been stowed away for the better part of two decades. It was an inferior alternative to the bulbous treasure he’d used to create [Pillars of Desolation]. However, between his far stronger foundations, the environment, and his improved Daos, Zac hoped to recreate the miracle of that day.

He’d accumulated for decades, all to get his hands on a second Supreme Pathbound skill.

46

RECREATING A MIRACLE

It was a shame [Cosmic Infusion] didn’t work when you wanted to extract the essence of Natural Treasures for personal use. Zac opted to rely on his tried and true method of cramming things down his gullet. It hadn’t failed him yet.

Zac wound the stalk around the mushroom before cramming it into his mouth. An explosion of three distinct flavors greeted him: an earthy yet delicious flavor from the mushroom, a minty taste from the stalk, and iron from his mouth filling with blood. The stalk was incredibly sharp and had opened dozens of wounds, but Zac ignored the sting as he chewed and swallowed.

The effect was immediate, and Zac’s mind expanded to the size of a galaxy. The very Heavens could have been descending to greet him, and he raised his hand to touch the Dao. Of course, the Heavens weren’t actually there, but moving his fingers through the energy-dense environment was enough to fill him with inspiration and new ideas.

The Evolutionary Soul in Zac’s aperture lit up like a Christmas tree and began to spin furiously like a motor pushed into overdrive. The Inexorable Core couldn’t withstand the pressure and was pushed to the side, hiding away while its sibling went crazy. Zac did nothing to stop the madness. He was fully occupied with running his plans and ideas through the filter of his temporary enlightenment.

And the momentum of decades of preparation combined with a raging sea of synthetic insight urged him on. Zac securely held a corner of the Dao in his hand with utmost clarity that shed its light on all points of hesitation. He couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to create, to usher an expression of his vision into the world.

Dozens of mental streams entered the large emerald, and Zac located the mysterious space within. He had no idea whether the emerald was a Natural Treasure or an array, but it was far beyond his [Fractal Framework Arrays].

The gemstone empowered and improved every stream of consciousness, and Zac had never felt so in control of his mind. Each string became a master artisan’s brush, and an intricate tapestry of patterns started to appear within the arranged space. The emerald was incredible, a tool truly worthy of his undertaking. It didn’t only hold the patterns in place while Zac added to the fractal, it nourished and perfected them.

Zac was filled with visions of destruction as he engraved the first sections. Golden roots of endless potential breaking out of the ground, the seas, and the sky. They were everywhere where life existed. They weren’t guardians or adjudicators. They were an expression of the primal truths of evolution. Rebirth through destruction and survival of the fittest. They cut down all opposition with ruthlessness and an efficiency worthy of a hardened veteran.

Cutting, stabbing, binding, consuming. Anything that entered his domain was prey, nourishment to his path. More patterns joined the first, like petals unfurling on a flower. He needed speed. He needed regeneration. He needed unyielding persistence. The more you gave, the more you’d get back. Right now, it was almost impossible to exhaust his Cosmic Energy in his human form, wasting the potential of his unusually large energy stockpiles. This skill would change that.

In seconds, whole sections of the Skill Fractal were finished thanks to his sudden ability to multitask. Furthermore, Zac constantly received detailed feedback telling him of imbalances and imperfections. One man and a gemstone formed a perfect partnership as increasingly complex patterns appeared on the fractal.

It took a mere fifteen minutes for the Skill Fractal to gain as many patterns as some of his simpler skills, yet he hadn’t even completed a fifth of its final form. In fact, he didn’t know exactly how the final fractal would look—some sections his inspiration had him add were completely new. Zac kept going with increasingly manic fervor, uncaring that small cracks had begun to form on the emerald’s surface.

He soon felt drained. Creation did not come without a price. The shards in his mind had driven that point home. However, the cosmos yielded to his desire, and a storm of energy was dragged into his body to fuel the process. One vine after another withered and collapsed, and the scars lost some of their radiance. But with their sacrifice came further inspiration. They were soldiers laying down their lives for a greater cause.

The influx prompted Zac to make a few changes, improving the previously prepared sections. The huge spiral in his mind groaned from exertion, but a beam of pure Mental Energy erupted from the Inexorable Core and nourished its sibling. Another hour passed, and the Skill Fractal approached its mature form. A form that was very different from the prototype blueprints he’d prepared back on Earth.

However, Zac wasn’t possessed by the almost delirious state when he created [Pillar of Desolation] and added patterns far beyond his understanding. Everything had a purpose, working together to drag his vision out of his mind into reality. Finally, only the impartment remained.

Zac’s heart rippled from nervousness, but he forged ahead with his plan. If he stopped now, he’d walk away with a powerful Peak-quality skill. However, it wouldn’t reach the level of [Pillar of Desolation]. For that skill to exhibit such monstrous power, it required one special ingredient: Oblivion. Back then, the idea to incorporate it had come naturally. This time, he’d have to take a controlled risk.

He extracted a wisp of Creation Energy from his body, and the withered vines in the square thrashed with hunger. Thankfully, something kept them from entering the meditation circle, allowing Zac to channel the capricious energy through the pathway on his shoulders and then into the emerald.

New cracks and odd distortions appeared across the gemstone, but it managed to curtail the untamable energy as it was dragged toward the Skill Fractal. Zac didn’t try to use the energy like a brush to add specific patterns. He only led it toward a section meant to house whatever it created while maintaining a steady vision of his goal. The wisp crossed the fractal like a small rock dropped into a pond, leaving ripples in its wake.

Small transformations took place wherever it passed, and Zac could tell it wasn’t completely random and unhinged. The whole emerald shook ominously, but it forced the Creation Energy to create following the rules of the Skill Fractal. The cracks grew deeper, but Zac forcibly prevented the emerald from cracking by holding it together with his Mental Energy.

A set of runes completely foreign to Zac appeared and seamlessly fused with the rest of the Skill Fractal. Zac spent the next minute analyzing the patterns and estimating whether the new addition had created any imbalances. No matter how he looked, it seemed perfect. The skill was fully formed.

It appeared the emerald agreed, or perhaps it simply couldn’t withstand the process any further. The large gemstone shattered, releasing a mysterious ripple of elevated Daos. At the epicenter, the Skill Fractal hovered, still protected by the special space. Zac surrounded the fractal with a blob of Mental Energy before dragging it into his body.

Meanwhile, he cut off a section of his pathways on his lower back, opening up the skill slot just behind where his Cosmic Core would be. The Skill Fractal was slotted in place, and Zac spent ten minutes connecting his pathways with the skill. Slotting a completely new skill without the System’s help was quite painful, but it was nothing compared to other things Zac endured over the years.

The final connector was fused, and Zac exhaled with relief upon feeling his Cosmic Energy smoothly pass through the Skill Fractal. At the same time, a refreshing surge of energy swept into his cells, filling him with power. He felt as though he’d gained a new limb and knew the formation was a success. The skill worked and could be activated without any trouble.

Now, the question was just how good a skill he’d created. Zac eagerly opened his Skill Screen and found the new entry.

[E] Primal Edict - Proficiency: Middle. The fate of the world is dictated by the deadliest predator. Upgradeable.

Zac nodded with satisfaction. He’d already suspected as much during the formation process, but confirming the skill had reached Middle Proficiency from the get-go was still nice. Though he’d been able to stop much earlier in the process, he, the square, and the emerald had more to give. Since he would have to use the skill with his life on the line very soon, Zac opted to push himself.

It was impossible to say exactly how [Primal Edict] would work without using it first, but it should be an explosion of vines appearing to rip everything apart. Not only that, but he added multiple sections at his height of inspiration that should create synergy with many of his other skills. The naming sense also hinted it was a creation more in line with Evolutionary Stance than drawing upon the mythos of Arcadia.

The big question was what kind of changes the infusion of Creation had lent to the skill. Another uncertainty was whether the skill could be considered at the same grade as [Pillars of Desolation]. The Skill Screen, unfortunately, didn’t provide any hints in that regard, but the surge of power he’d felt before indicated there was another place he could check. Zac opened his Status Screen, where more answers waited.

Name: Zachary Atwood

Level: 150

Class: [E-Epic] Edge of Arcadia

Race: [D] Human - Void Emperor (Corrupted)

Alignment: [Zecia] Atwood Empire – Baron of Conquest

Titles: […] The Second Step, Singular Specialist, Apex Attainment, Runic Progenitor, Grand Achievement

Limited Titles: Tower of Eternity Sector All-Star – 14th, Equanimity, Big Axe Gladiator, The Final Twilight – 1st, Gates of Rebirth

Dao: Branch of the War Axe – Middle, Branch of the Kalpataru – Middle, Branch of the Pale Seal – Middle

Core: [E] Duplicity

Strength: 31,300 [Increase: 164%. Efficiency: 372%]

Dexterity: 14,173 [Increase: 121%. Efficiency: 259%]

Endurance: 26,880 [Increase: 155%. Efficiency: 372%]

Vitality: 25,558 [Increase: 153%. Efficiency: 389%]

Intelligence: 4,429 [Increase: 115%. Efficiency: 259%]

Wisdom: 9,495 [Increase: 122%. Efficiency: 272%]

Luck: 777 [Increase: 134%. Efficiency: 289%]

Free Points: 0

Nexus Coins: [D] 13,253,160

Mana: 41,023

Just as expected. The surge of power before wasn’t just the result of restoring the energy circuit in his body. It came from an influx of Attributes Points awarded by the System.

Adding another skill to improve his lethality was the biggest reason he’d created a new skill, but it wasn’t the only one. He’d been waiting to claim the [Runemaker] title since he first upgraded his initial set of skills back in the Twilight Ocean. It was the reward for creating a Peak-quality skill from scratch and the final readily available title he could gain before breaking through.

That specific title hadn’t appeared on his Status Screen, but Zac knew that was good news as he focused on the title.

[Runic Progenitor: Create a pathbound Supreme-quality skill while still in E-grade. Reward: Base Attributes +100, Luck +10, All Attributes +10%, Effect of Attributes +10%.]

The difference in phrasing was only a single word. [Runic Erudition] had said “form” a skill, while [Runic Progenitor] said create. It didn’t seem like a big difference, but Zac knew how much greater the difficulty had been. Forming [Pillar of Desolation] was a great achievement, but it ultimately built upon the signature skill of an Epic class: [Profane Seal].

The foundations required to create something from scratch were far greater, which was also shown by the fact the new title was far better than [Runic Erudition]. Zac hadn’t risked his life as he had for some of his other top-tier titles, but getting it was only possible through a series of lucky encounters.

Truthfully, Zac knew he was a bit lucky. He originally planned on visiting Red Zones from all seventeen Dao Peaks before creating his skill. Being inundated in those environments had broadened his understanding of the Dao as a whole, and he hoped to use that understanding to control the Creation Energy at the final step. Now, he had been forced to create the skill early, which partly left things to chance.

That wasn’t the only thing. Without the lake water, he would never have reached his current attainments in fractals. Without access to a region like the Keys of Ascension, he wouldn’t have managed to push the skill from a Peak-quality to supreme skill. Luck and hard work had come together to create another miracle.

Getting a second Supreme Pathbound skill was exactly what Zac hoped for. Of course, he didn’t quite know how to feel about the fact that neither of the two supreme skills used his axe as a base. Instead, they were supplementary skills designed to fill similar purposes. Still, Zac couldn’t complain. This was exactly what he’d aimed for.

Better yet, the good news didn’t end with a supreme skill and a top-tier title. [Runic Progenitor] had even brought a friend.

[Grand Achievement: Gain 50 Titles while in E-Grade. Reward: Effect of Attributes +6%.]

[Runic Progenitor] was his fiftieth title when you included Limited Titles, the [Pathstrider] title, which marked him for ‘further training,’ and the weird hidden title for the Terminus. Reaching the milestone awarded him a companion title to [Achievement Hunter]. It was named similarly to his stacking Luck-based titles, where he got a second title instead of replacing his old one with a slightly better variant.

The net gain was significant, especially thanks to the double injection of efficiency. Gaining 10% and 6% respectively meant his effective attribute pool had been boosted by almost 17%. It was a huge improvement, especially considering how overbearing his raw attributes already were. Add to that both an increase and flat attributes, and his combat strength should have increased by roughly 20% in just under two hours.

With such an improvement, his skills would become even harder for his enemies to deal with. His defenses would become unbreakable, his attacks unstoppable. A smile tugged at Zac’s lips upon seeing the 777 Luck on his Status Screen. If such an auspicious number couldn’t help him get the last pieces needed for his Core Formation and Omnitool, then nothing would.

Zac was just about to close the Status Screen when he noticed a final change. Or rather, lack of change. His Mana was the same as before he entered the Keys of Ascension.

“I got a bounty?” Zac whistled.

“Yup! Not bad,” Null confirmed. “The peak reward for new skills is 2,500 Mana. Getting 1,000 is quite rare.”

“Such a good skill only awarded 1,000?” Zac grimaced.

“Well, these bounties are different from your blueprint evaluation,” Null said. “It’s based on novelty and a new application of Dao. But the System and boss are both so ancient. What’s really new under the sky? The Dao evolves and changes a bit, and the young thousands of generations help fill the gaps. Getting 1,000 is already quite generous, and I think it’s completely thanks to your Dao of Life. You know, less than 5% of guests manage to get this kind of bounty during their visit.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing,” Zac agreed.

Zac’s head felt like both mush and a squeezed-out rag after pushing beyond his limits for over an hour. He just wanted to lie down and sleep, but he took a Soldier Pill and got up on unsteady legs. In twenty minutes, he’d be charged for a third hour, and Zac wanted to be gone before then.

Zac couldn’t resist trying to snatch a few of those mysterious vines. They’d withered during his skill formation, but they were already starting to radiate powerful waves of Pure Life again. They’d make great materials. Unfortunately, when Zac cut one off, it turned to ash while all its brethren hid underground.

Thank God he hadn’t tried that before beginning the skill creation.

Zas shook his head and began his descent toward the exit. The return was much more difficult to endure. His mind was exhausted, lowering his defenses against the constant impressions around him. He almost stepped off the path a few times but left in one piece. Zac hurried over the bridge and returned to his mansion, where he fell into a deep slumber.

He only woke up a full twelve hours later, feeling mostly refreshed. Two new messages were waiting for him, both from Catheya and Kruta. Zac sent a message to Kruta before activating the teleportation array. It opened, but he didn’t step through. Instead, Catheya walked over, radiating a mist of chilled Miasma to shield her from the Pure Life on the peak.

“Hello, beautiful,” Zac smiled.

“I knew it. You have the face of a child who’s up to no good. Vastness City is abuzz, and people are rushing toward the battlefield you’ve talked about,” Catheya said, a helpless smile tugging at her lips. “What have you done this time?”

47

THE STAND OF SAEWARD

Zac was about to share his prepared excuse, but he sighed and shook his head before leading Catheya into his study.

“It’s nothing much. My senses are just telling me someone is targeting me. I just got the Fate-augmenting prayer beads, and they only made me more certain.”

“Target you? Who?” Catheya frowned. “Nerven Serku? Didn’t he enter seclusion a few months ago?”

“It could be him, but I don’t think so. He never really cared about his followers and only made some trouble to save face. I have a hard time imagining him going after me personally over some minor grudge. He’s much too careful for that.”

“Can your feeling just be from the fact something is happening in the Stand?” Catheya asked.

“Only in the sense that I think someone is preparing to ambush me there.”

“Well, both your personas have made some waves, but I can’t see someone specifically targeting yo—” Catheya said, suddenly freezing and looking up. “Ultom.”

“You think?” Zac said, his eyes narrowing in thought.

“Clashes are rarely premeditated here. A situation like the Calamity is one thing, but this sounds different. If people know you’re a sealbearer, it’s a completely different matter.”

“My blueprint does contain many theories based on that place,” Zac said.

“More than that. We’re talking about an Eternal Heritage, a matter important enough to make Supremacies emerge from their sealed states. If they’re willing to pay the price, they can probably find clues one way or another.”

Zac grimaced and slowly nodded. The array his mother had left him did have some special means to obscure his fate, but she’d warned him it would only work on Autarchs. It had seemed more than enough back then, but that was before he became embroiled with the Left Imperial Palace.

“It’s just a theory, though,” Catheya quickly added.

“As far as motives go, it’s a good one,” Zac agreed. “But it doesn’t help me solve the situation.”

“What will you do?”

“I’m heading in with Kruta in half a day to start looking around,” Zac said.

“You’re still going even when you think someone is plotting to kill you?” Catheya groaned. “I knew it.”

“You know I have to,” Zac smiled. “It might be my only chance to get the kind of item I need. Besides, it seems a good place to deal with this threat.”

“I hate that I can’t join you,” Catheya sighed as she leaned her head on his shoulder. “I’m just 4,000 Mana short.”

In contrast to Catheya, Zac was quite happy with how things had played out. She was powerful enough that she wouldn’t become a liability, but he’d still rather deal with this alone.

“We still have the Everfrost Isles to look forward to. I’ll be relying on you then.” Zac smiled before turning serious again. “Can you do me a favor? Stay inside your manor while I’m out this time. They might target you and Ogras to get to me. This is doubly true if this matter is related to the heritage.”

“Fine,” Catheya said. “But I’ll get the annoying shadow and do some research first. We’ll see if we can find anything out of place. Do you want me to ask for reinforcements?”

“No,” Zac said. “For all we know…”

“I get it,” Catheya sighed. “Be careful, alright?”

Catheya left a while later while Zac scoured the reports again. Normally, he’d travel the markets before heading into a Red Zone, but he was unwilling to expose himself and his recent gains in case someone was keeping watch. He was using his aura-hiding bracelets and the aura modulator, but you never knew.

Unfortunately, Catheya and Ogras came up empty-handed after half a day’s investigation. People were stirring, and the gate to the Stand of Saeward had been opened dozens of times already. It wasn’t hard to figure out this would become a bloody affair, even if you ignored the threat hiding in the shadows.

It was troubling not even to be able to narrow things down, but Zac couldn’t just sit around. The longer he waited, the more thorough his enemy’s preparations would be. He needed to move swiftly and drag his enemies out of the shadows. If nothing else, Kruta had already sent him three messages, proving the barbarian was getting impatient.

“Since when were you so slow-footed?” Kruta complained when a hooded Zac finally appeared in his storefront.

“Sorry, I had some things to deal with before we headed out. Besides, no one forced you to sit around.”

“I’d rather be late than miss out on your uncanny luck,” Kruta said as the gate appeared. “Well, let’s do this.”

Zac nodded, and the two appeared in front of a simple hut standing atop a gargantuan skull. The skull had once belonged to a bloodthirsty Beast Emperor, and it still emitted fierce waves of carnage. It drenched the hut in a bloody aura, though Zac could tell it had been changed somewhat. It felt protective rather than threatening after being altered by the Mana domain. Not protective of Zac, though, but of Kruta.

A huge beast could have been eying him, ready to strike in case their ward was attacked.

Zac ignored the feeling and turned to his travel companion. “Is everything prepared?”

“Don’t know how necessary all this is,” Kruta muttered as he took out two small bones.

“Just humor me,” Zac said as he curiously looked at what the man was doing.

One of the bones looked like a fang, while the other was a densely inscribed plate. Kruta placed the fang on the plate, and the primal scribbles crawled onto the tooth. In just seconds, it was completely covered with a set of engravings.

“You know,” Kruta said, grimacing as he pushed the tooth into his neck like a syringe. “Scurrying around like a rat might end with you getting targeted by the cats.”

Zac only smiled as green scales appeared across Kruta’s face as he transformed into a lizardman. The bone disk was an interesting transformation treasure that allowed the barbarian to take on features of beasts he’d felled. The tooth was imbued with a temporary array, and the array was then injected into Kruta himself. It allowed for a transformation beyond even what [Million Faces] could accomplish.

“There,” Kruta muttered as he looked down at his hands with disgust. “Should last two weeks.”

“Sorry, this isn’t my style either. I’ve just created too many enmities over the past years,” Zac sighed.

“That you have,” the orc guffawed.

“It’s only temporary, I promise.”

“So, do I pass inspection? Can we go?” the barbarian huffed.

“In one hour,” Zac said.

“It’s so weird,” Kruta snorted as he thumped down on a large shinbone. “Your path is straight, but you’re so crooked and paranoid. Is that why you grew a second shape?”

“Maybe,” Zac laughed as he sat down. “I just want to make it harder for our steps to be followed. If the two of us emerge in disguises right after I enter your mansion, you could put two and two together.”

“Whatever,” Kruta grunted. “So, you know about the Stand?”

“Well, only what the reports are saying. The three dangers and all that.”

“Right,” Kruta said. “Things are changing, though. Normally, I’d be confident talking down the Hero Souls, but I can’t make any guarantees any longer. I traveled the outer fields last week. The spirits are angry, almost descending into madness. It’s probably even worse in the depths.”

“Did any of them hint at what’s going on?”

“Well,” Kruta shuddered. “Few can communicate, especially now. But the few that do all say the same thing. ‘He’s coming.’ Over and over.”

“He’s coming?” Zac muttered. “Who? Saeward?”

“Maybe, or whoever forced him to make his stand,” Kruta said. “Judging by the anger in the Hero Souls, I’m leaning toward the latter.”

The Hero Souls were the lingering spirits of Saeward’s armies. Millions had died during that ancient battle. And while the bodies had turned to dust, their will remained. It mixed with the environment, forming transient spirits called Hero Souls. Hero Souls often minded their own business, patrolling the lands as though they were still alive.

However, some had been formed with quite a bit of resentment and acted like vengeful ghosts. Others were mostly sane but still confused the guests with their enemies and attacked. Eventually, they’d destabilize and disappear. They weren’t true spirits like Spectral cultivators. It was more accurate to call them physical memories that had occasionally been twisted over the eons.

The Hero Souls were generally the least perilous of the three dangers, especially if you avoided emitting any killing intent around them. Someone like Kruta could even get help from their kind. Unfortunately, it looked like that old knowledge no longer held sway. The Hero Souls were the most numerous inhabitants of the Stand. If they were turning feral, they’d pose a huge threat.

“What about the other two?”

“I didn’t run into any of the puppets. But the energy of the land is rising. They’ll be able to absorb more power, unleashing deadlier force. Some buried under the earth might even wake up. I think the same will be true for the fortifications.”

“That’s just great,” Zac sighed.

The puppets once belonged to the mysterious force that attacked and eventually defeated Saeward and his army. They were pure killing machines, some equivalent to Late Hegemons in strength. The more intact ones even possessed lethal skills.

There was only one puppet for every thirty Hero Souls at most, but you were probably better off meeting a group of hostile spirits. The puppets were apparently incredibly hard to deal with. They were made entirely from D-grade materials and thus extremely difficult to damage. Worse, they were seemingly immortal. Even if you managed to grind one to dust, it’d reform not much later. Incredible Dao attacks were required to destroy such an intangible repair array.

The final threat was the War Fortifications. All kinds of array towers and contraptions were strewn across a battlefield the size of a country. None of them were fully functional, but that only made them more unpredictable. A seemingly inert stone pillar could suddenly unleash a sea of fire that swallowed everything for miles in every direction.

Destroying them was even harder than the puppets and liable to bring disaster upon your head. Since they didn’t hold any valuables, most opted to simply skirt around anything that looked suspicious.

“Do you have any ideas for an attack plan?” Zac asked.

“Well…” Kruta slowly said.

“What?”

“I’ve just seen how sneaky you can be,” the barbarian shrugged. “I’m afraid you’ll take my ideas and run.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll only ditch you when you can’t keep up any longer.” Zac winked, but the barbarian was clearly not joking around. “I’m kidding. What do you propose?”

“First, let’s discuss the spoils,” Kruta said. “I get the Mana bounty, provided we manage to seize whatever item’s waiting at the end through cooperation.”

“Just like that?” Zac said with a raised brow. “Do you want to duel again?”

“I know you’re a bit stronger than me, but strength is not the only factor. I can commune with the Hero Souls, which will increase our success rate more than a strong arm. More importantly, I have the key to solving the Stand.”

Zac didn’t immediately answer. Not getting the bounty wasn’t a big deal, but giving up on the item itself was a problem. He needed an item to match the [Calamity Core] in quality, which would definitely be a defining treasure of the battlefield.

“To be clear, I just want the Mana. I have everything I need for my breakthrough, and I know you are looking for attuned treasures. We split the other spoils six parts to me, four to you. If both want a specific item, we can barter for it,” the barbarian added. “And I promise, you won’t leave disappointed if you follow me, and we survive.”

“What if we get split up or are placed in a situation where we have to contend against each other?” Zac asked.

“Then I still get 10% of your spoils,” the barbarian grinned. “Finder’s fee.”

“You can have the Mana, but I want it if the bounty treasure has an attunement of Pure Conflict. I’ll pay 1 C-grade Nexus Coin for it,” Zac said. “As for the sixty-forty split and a finder’s fee, your ghost-talking isn’t enough. You’ll have to prove this key of yours is worth the extra loot.”

“Ghost-talking? My grandma would whoop you until you sang like a canary if she heard you speak like that,” Kruta laughed. “I guess your terms are fine. Well, what do you know about Saeward?”

“Except that he died, nothing,” Zac said. “The scrolls don’t mention it.”

“Not died,” the barbarian whispered as he leaned closer. “Disappeared.”

“What?” Zac said.

“There are no mentions of Saeward dying anywhere,” Kruta explained. “In fact, Saeward’s army had the upper hand. Then, their War Array suddenly crumbled, and Saeward was gone. A few of the Hero Souls remembered the confusion, the betrayal. Even with Saeward controlling the war effort, they were barely winning. With him gone, things quickly deteriorated.”

“He fled?”

“Maybe,” Kruta said. “But I personally don’t think so. I think he either was ambushed or had to act quickly to stop a looming threat.”

“So…?” Zac prompted.

“Well, I haven’t figured out the details yet,” Kruta shrugged. “But I think the key to solving this riddle is discovering what happened to Saeward.”

“That’s not much of a key.”

“Well, this is,” Kruta said as he took out a thick hide.

It was painted with black ink, depicting two raging armies locked in battle. Zac frowned as it wasn’t some ancient artifact from the battlefield. It was newly drawn, probably by Kruta himself. But suddenly, Zac felt himself get sucked into the drawing and saw how the armies and fortifications stretched out in front of him. The artistic depiction transitioned into a vast strategic overview of the whole battlefield. Additionally, the armies were moving, following patterns and strategies Zac couldn’t decipher.

“I’ve studied the Stand for years: the armies, their movements. The world has become an echo of their paths and history. This understanding will help keep us safe in a world that’s about to go mad,” Kruta explained. “Well, safer, anyway.”

“You’ve drawn a map of the whole thing?”

“No,” Kruta said with a shake of his head. “But enough to have figured out a path to where we need to go: the command center.”

“From where Saeward presumably disappeared?”

“Exactly. If we’re lucky, we might not just walk away with some naturally born treasure. We might walk away with the wealth of a High-grade ancient cultivator.”

“What?” Zac asked.

“Think about it. Saeward disappeared, and his army was slaughtered. But why are the puppets still walking around aimlessly? Why didn’t the victors collect them? Why can you find broken Spatial Rings and Spirit Tools all over the battlefield? Saeward might have been ambushed, or he might have ambushed whoever is now returning according to the Hero Souls. It doesn’t matter.

“I think both fell into some hidden spot or pocket space. Perhaps Saeward even managed to drag his enemy into his Inner World. In that case, we’re dealing with two ancient masters, their heritage and wealth untouched for eons. Since the Ruthless Heavens govern these worlds, they’ll surely have formed troves.”

“What does this have to do with the surging energy in the zone?”

“I can’t say for sure,” Kruta said. “But I know this. Until now, it has been impossible to reach the heart of the zone. The Hero Souls guarding the command center are extremely aggressive, and the fortifications form a death trap for E-grade cultivators. If there’s a trove, then it’s still intact. But with the surge of energy, the battlelines are being redrawn. The puppets are mounting a new attack, which might create an opening. That is the key to sneaking inside.”

Zac had to admit, he could feel the call of adventure. Unsolved mysteries, ancient troves? Not to mention, it would be hard to successfully launch an ambush on him in the depths of the Stand. With the powerful Hero Souls and puppets crawling across the place, you were liable to attract more attention than you could handle.

Or was that what the enemy was planning to use against him?

Zac shook his head. There was no way to know how things would play out. He could only remain vigilant and try to stay based on the changes on the battlefield.

“How do we know your theory is correct?”

“Well, there are no guarantees. But I’ve been thinking about that message, ‘He’s coming.’ I think it means the hidden realm is returning to the surface. Or perhaps some seal hiding the location of Saeward’s battle is failing. It’s the trapped energy from Saeward’s fall that’s being released, causing the battlefield’s awakening.”

“Well, there’s a lot of guesswork, but I think you’re onto something,” Zac said.

“And no more than five people have spent as much time as me in the Stand. Of them, only I have gotten the clues from the Hero Souls,” Kruta proudly said. “And that’s why Kruta gets 60%.”

48

HERO SOULS

“Fine,” Zac smiled. “You get 60% if we both reach the trove.”

“Don’t forget the finder’s fee,” Kruta grinned.

“Are you trying to lead me into the lion’s den before scurrying back to safety?” Zac said with a raised brow.

“No, but I know my limits. I’ll do what I can, but this isn’t a war for the survival of my tribe,” Kruta said, his eyes narrowing. “But you, you have that madness in your eyes. The madness that will lead you to greatness or ruin. I’m betting on the former. That way, I’ll walk away with some goodies.”

“I don’t know if I agree, but fine,” Zac snorted, looking thoughtfully at his companion.

There were no guarantees, but Zac’s instincts told him Kruta wasn’t part of the plot against him. The sense of doom hadn’t changed at all when Zac entered Kruta’s manor. If anything, it had weakened slightly after they’d reached an accord. As such, Zac felt bad about potentially dragging this man into a conspiracy.

“Remember your words. You’re not here to risk your life. So if you see things going out of control, don’t worry about me and just flee.”

“What trouble are you cooking up, shapeshifter?” Kruta said suspiciously.

“Hopefully, nothing. But some enmities from the outside can reach even these realms,” Zac said. “It’s not worth dying over someone else’s grudge. Now, how will we reach the command center without getting ourselves killed or in trouble with the others?”

Kruta didn’t look surprised or shocked. Instead, he just nodded like it was a matter of course. “The Dao of Conflict is Heaven’s Path. More so than the other peaks, perhaps. Don’t worry about me. Worse comes to worst, I’ll drag all the Hero Souls in the region down on my enemies’ heads. And don’t worry about reaching the command center, either. Kruta’s got it all planned out!”

They spent the next hour going over routes, hiding spots to regroup, and tactics. Kruta had a wealth of experience collected during his nine years in the Perennial Vastness, much of which had been spent in the Stand and similar battlefields. Knowledge you wouldn’t find in any publicly available information package or the manor scrolls.

From there, Kruta activated his teleportation array, leading to one of the cheaper Green Zones. The moment they stepped through, Zac activated the pillar again, leading them to the teleportation square in Vastness City. It was a small trick not to emerge from their storefront, and it allowed them to enter the Stand of Saeward after just spending seconds in the city.

It was Zac’s first visit, and the missives weren’t enough to prepare him for the incredible resentment in the air. Although, resentment wasn’t the right word. This wasn’t the unadulterated anger, bloodlust, and irreconciliation that had poisoned the Bloodwind Planet. Those feelings were all there, but they were subordinate to the blazing sun of an endless fighting spirit.

Zac felt like he was standing among millions of soldiers roaring in defiance, the ground trembling from their auras. War was brewing. A war for survival, a war for supremacy. It was the fundamental law of progress, and you found it manifest everywhere, from nature’s cycles to conflict between men. Kruta was right. Conflict was Heaven’s Path.

His whole Soul Aperture trembled, and the Dao Avatar for his Branch of the War Axe danced in the empty space of his mind, right between the two huge soul spirals. The avatar and [Spiritual Void] were greedily feasting on the rich truths around him, but the absorption affected his mental state.

Still, it wasn’t enough to affect Zac’s senses. He took a calming breath and found his center, holding onto the Void in his heart. He couldn’t let himself be controlled by his Dao or swept up by the storm around him. He always had to be the driving motivation behind the conflict. Otherwise, it’d just devolve into violence and madness.

After stabilizing his mind, Zac made another discovery. The threat of death had grown more palpable. He still couldn’t pinpoint the source or time, but it was clearly related to this realm. His enemies were already here, which could be considered a good thing. Catheya had compiled a partial list of those who’d entered, and he could treat every person he met as a potential enemy.

Zac looked around and found Kruta staring at him oddly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ah?” Kruta coughed. “It was weird. I felt you become a Hero Soul for a moment there. I guess your path resonated with the lingering will of the fallen.”

“Something like that.”

“That’s good,” Kruta nodded. “The better you harmonize with the battlefield, the less trouble will come your way. Either case, looks like you can keep your wits about you. I guess I won’t have to worry about you losing your sense of self.”

“Worried I’ll become the fourth danger?” Zac smiled.

“Other guests losing their minds,” Kruta said with a wry shake of his head. “I’ve not heard of it happening over the past decades, but who knows now that things are like this? I already feel the amount of resentment growing.”

Zac nodded. Kruta might really be onto something with his theories. The Hero Souls were the only ones who could generate resentment in the Stand, and it made sense if their anger came from the resurgence of their enemy.

“The environment wasn’t this corrosive before?” Zac asked.

“It’s only a bit worse here at the entrance,” Kruta explained. “It’s much more noticeable further in. So don’t let down your guard, or the war madness might take you.”

The zone was quite beautiful for an ancient warzone. The Stand of Saeward seemed to have occurred on a meteor soaring through space. It was shrouded by a perpetual night sky, though it wasn’t that dark. Nebulas and radiant stars drenched the world in ethereal light, creating an ambiance that belied the dangers.

Oddly enough, the stars moved unpredictably in the sky. It was one thing if their position moved as a result of the world turning, but this was different. Almost as if the stars were soldiers forming small armies. These armies moved in different directions, clashing with other groups. It was a stellar war, and Zac’s mind trembled taking in the scene. There were truths hidden in the movements. Or was it just a result of the Dao being rampant?

“Best I can guess is that the sky is made up of at least five Heavenly Layers,” Kruta commented. “They are like painted glass panes placed on top of each other, each showing a different set of stars. It looks like they are crashing toward each other, but I’ve never actually seen them collide. It’s like they pass right through each other.”

Zac slowly nodded, memorizing the piece of intelligence. You never knew what information would prove useful in these hostile worlds. What was for sure, though, was that it would be impossible to map a path using the stars. Ventus might have been able to do it, but the numerologist’s storefront disappeared five months after they met. Proof he had either succeeded in breaking through or died—the Perennial Vastness never told which it was.

The land wasn’t the sparse rock you’d expect from a world hurtling through space. Neither was it quite what you’d expect from a still semi-active battlefield. Blue knee-high grass covered the ground, and bushes and small trees weren’t an uncommon sight. There were some bare sections far in the distance, no doubt a result of one of the three dangers. But with the extreme energy density and ample Dao, the plants would quickly regrow.

No guests loitered by the entrance, but they only managed to run five minutes before three warriors appeared to block their path. Zac looked at them one by one, his features hidden beneath his hood. He’d once more taken on the visage of one of the people who now lay in his Corpse Sack. The three strangers were all powerful, though that was to be expected in a place so dangerous it had an echelon requirement. Looking at them, even Zac felt a small pang of danger.

However, this danger was fully disconnected from the hidden sword trained at his back. In other words, they didn’t have good intentions but weren’t connected to the conspiracy. His [Lucky Beads] were already proving their worth. He wouldn’t fully trust its signals since some treasures and skills could counter them, but having them sharpening his sixth sense was incredibly useful.

“Three strangers appearing out of nowhere,” Kruta grinned as a baleful aura started leaking from his body. The grass rustled, and it almost sounded like swords colliding as a bloody haze was released from the grass. “The grass has grown parched and hungry over the eons.”

Zac said nothing, but a nasty two-handed sword appeared in his hand as his killing intent joined Kruta’s. He didn’t want to fight so soon and this close to the teleportation gate, but it was like the whole world urged him on. Not fighting felt like holding his breath. It was fine for a bit, but it wasn’t a natural state in the Stand. A desire for battle couldn’t be ignored, and veins started appearing on the newcomers’ foreheads. None of them seemed to have a matching Dao with the realm, and they had much worse resistance to the whispers of war.

Yet, they didn’t attack.

“No need to draw your weapons!” a man in the middle said, his voice hoarse. “It’s the realm that’s playing tricks on us! We are just looking for people who wish to form an alliance. Small groups stand no chance against the established coalitions. If we join forces, we’ll—”

“Thanks, but we’re still going to explore it on our own,” Kruta lazily interjected.

The warrior hesitated a second, but a cold gust swept through the grass before he could act.

Eight ancient warriors appeared out of nowhere. They were not fully tangible humanoids, and some of their body parts shifted in and out of reality. Armor covered every inch of their bodies, so it was impossible to tell whether they were actual humans or some similar species. Zac’s eyes widened a bit as he quickly retracted his aura. He hadn’t expected to see Hero Souls this close to the teleporter.

All eight wielded identical gear and weapons, but they were definitely not some cannon fodder troops. Each had a towering aura matching that of Peak Hegemons with mountains of corpses under their belts. Swirls of resentment and ferocity surrounded them, and Zac sensed how the realm protected and nurtured them.

However, something was off about their strength. Most likely, they had been Peak Hegemons before falling, while they only had the energy equivalent of Early Hegemons right now. They were ultimately just memories, unable to bring forth the full strength of their true selves.

Still, seasoned veterans who were once a full grade higher were not easy to deal with, especially when reinforcement could appear out of nowhere when it came to these Hero Souls. Kruta had already restrained his bloodlust as well, but the Hero Souls still stopped between the two groups. Their stares were quite unnerving, not giving off the slightest hint of whether they were friendly or about to attack.

“Cycle your Dao,” Kruta whispered, and Zac let his Branch of the War Axe course through his body.

The effect was immediate. Every Hero Souls ignored him and Kruta and turned toward the trio, who were incapable of harmonizing with the Conflict in the region. The guests backed away, not daring to speak out of fear they’d be attacked. These Hero Souls, all things considered, were relatively weak, but there were eight of them, along with two hostile guests. Fighting would be quite dangerous.

A moment later, the trio was gone, followed by four of the Hero Souls.

“Boring,” Kruta muttered. “They had two more hiding in the distance. They probably wanted to lead us into an ambush, but they’re gone now.”

“That doesn’t mean they’ve given up,” Zac commented.

“True. Preying on solitary warriors is the only thing those kinds of people can accomplish in this type of event.” Kruta snorted, looking at Zac with annoyance. “Of course, this could have been easily solved while also awarding us some Mana.”

“Two hours. Then we let loose,” Zac smiled.

That was the best Zac could come up with on such short notice. He’d expose himself after they’d left the starting reaches of the Stand. The farther they headed, the harder it would be to set up a complex ambush—the Stand was too dynamic a region for preparing a bunch of arrays. You couldn’t even lie in ambush for too long. The puppets could sense static energy accumulations and head in your direction.

Conversely, the worst-case scenario was if the enemy stayed by the entrance. They could masquerade as any random coalition if they did, and it was much easier to set up a lethal trap that would be difficult to avoid. He needed to drag the enemy into the depths, where chaos reigned supreme—his home turf.

“Fine,” Kruta scoffed, turning to the lingering spiritual warriors.

The barbarian bowed with a reverent expression, something Zac felt wasn’t faked. “Esteemed warriors, Kruta the Second greets you. Are you willing to answer a few questions of mine?”

The Hero Souls looked at Kruta for a few seconds before turning away, heading back toward the depths of the battlefield.

“Well, didn’t attack us, at least,” Kruta shrugged. “Pretty good outcome as things go nowadays. Let’s go.”

The two sped off, making use of the starting region’s relative safety to utilize movement skills. Soon after setting out, they heard a scream and an eruption of energy. The Hero Souls had attacked the trio.

An odd storm was brewing above their heads. Dozens of what could be defined as spatial tears had opened up, dragging energy and Dao into the beyond. However, there were no actual tears. The energy was imploding onto itself, creating a shockwave that further stirred up the area. The phenomenon looked a bit like beating hearts of Pure Conflict, and the hearts were beating faster and faster.

“See those clouds?” Kruta laughed. “They’re why you have to finish battles quickly and move on. Conflict breeds conflict. It’s an insatiable fire. New souls will be born while there’s conflict and energy, and I’ve never seen this place run out of either. They’re like catnip for the puppets too. We should get out of here. I didn’t expect such a big cloud to appear right at the entrance.”

Zac nodded, and the two ran deeper into the Stand. Powerful ripples erupted behind them, and Zac shook his head. The ambushers had been forced to release skills, but it hadn’t been enough, judging by the continuous eruptions. Releasing so much Cosmic Energy was like pouring gasoline on the fire. It was one thing to use a movement skill to cross large distances occasionally. If you started peppering offensive skills with lethal intent, you’d feed into the conflict of the realm itself.

Such was the danger of the Stand of Saeward. It was easy to get into a fight but hard to extricate yourself. There was a reason this place was not only a Red Zone but one with minimum requirements to enter.

“Danger, right!” Zac suddenly warned as his mind screamed of peril.

Zac stepped left with [Earthstrider], but his vision turned white, and his muscles stopped listening to his commands as a sea of lightning bolts swept through him and continued for another five hundred meters. The agony continued for a whole minute before relenting, at which point Zac was left panting as he angrily glared at an inconspicuous mound in the distance.

“Not a fan of that one,” Zac grunted.

“Really? I feel all loosened up,” Kruta grinned, cracking his neck. “Wait ‘til you see some of the things waiting for us further in. Good thing both of us are meaty, ‘cause we’ll lose a few layers of skin before we’re through.”

“That’s just great.” Zac exhaled, then swirled around upon sensing a powerful energy fluctuation shooting toward them.

“Bad things rarely come alone here,” Kruta grunted as he took out his twin swords. “What’s a Red Cap doing this close to the entrance? This place is really going out of control.”

49

RED CAPS

Zac looked at the creature rushing them at a speed Zac couldn’t match without using [Earthstrider]. It appeared eerily similar to the Hero Souls, except this puppet was clearly fully corporeal. The full-body armor was similar in design, except it seemed to be made out of a light black ceramic alloy with a red helmet.

Red Caps were the weakest puppets, named after their bloodred heads. They were the equivalent of Early Hegemons, though their durability was one grade higher. Above them were the Blue Cloaks, and then came the White Sigils. White Sigils were solidly in Middle D-grade and almost impossible to destroy.

Finally, there were the very rare Golden Champions. If you saw one of those puppets, you were better off running for your life than fighting it. Even a coalition would have trouble taking down one of those things. By the descriptions, Zac wasn’t the least confident in his ability to tangle with them, even if he went all-out.

“Let me deal with this one. I’ll show you how it’s done,” Kruta said with excitement written all over his face.

Kruta’s two swords hummed with the Dao of Conflict, and they started to absorb the ambient Dao in the air. The weapons looked like a mix of messer swords and butcher’s cleavers. They were barely a meter long and had a width of around two hands. They were single-edged, and a thick line of runes ran along the back of the blade.

As ambient Dao pored into the swords, the first rune by the handle lit up, prompting the swords’ auras to rise marginally. Kruta had large amounts of orcish blood pouring through his veins, but his gear was far more exquisite than what Zac saw from his brethren in the Big Axe Coliseum. The swords were a rare dual Spirit Tool of extreme quality, and Zac suspected they had an equivalent or even greater spirituality than [Verun’s Bite].

A spectral projection appeared behind Kruta’s back as he readied himself for battle. It was only a bit larger than Kruta and even looked similar except it was a pureblood orc. It was the ancestral soul whisp Kruta the Second had been born with—the original Kruta. He emitted a heart-palpitating aura that reminded Zac of the Hero Souls. Zac felt like he looked upon an old monster like Be’Zi, but the projection’s actual aura was only at Kruta’s level.

The barbarian shot forward, forgoing finesse as he crashed into the puppet. A shockwave turned the already scorched grass in the surrounding area to shreds. The ripple was followed by dangerous waves that would rip apart any F-grade cultivator. Even Zac was forced to take a few steps back to avoid getting cut. Kruta had become a violent hurricane as he launched an unceasing barrage of strikes on the Red Cap.

As he moved, so did the avatar on his back. It almost looked like Kruta had grown a second set of arms, and two translucent fists grabbed at the weapons in Kruta’s hands. The swords shuddered as they formed spectral projections, turning two swords into four. Zac wryly smiled, remembering thinking the barbarian’s style was full of odd holes when they first met.

Much of that could be explained by the fact that Kruta couldn’t rely on his signature technique in a martial duel. In the real world, Kruta never fought alone. He had his ancestor, Kruta the Great, to aid him. They were two halves of a whole; one couldn’t exhibit his true strength without the other. It was like fighting with one arm behind his back for the barbarian.

The imperfections in Kruta’s blueprint were the real deal, though, an unavoidable side effect of the man being a bit of a fighting idiot. Then again, Zac’s accomplishments in that arena would have been even worse if he hadn’t stumbled onto a lake’s worth of liquified comprehension. However, those gaps were mostly fixed by now, largely thanks to monthly duels with Zac.

Cracks started to appear on the puppet’s ceramic armor from Kruta’s no-holds offensive, but it was no slouch. It seemed to possess almost a bestial instinct, and its sword was a blur as it fended off the constant swirl of attacks. It couldn’t be considered fighting at the level of the Integration Stage, but its movements were based on a powerful set technique without any clear weaknesses.

There were probably no more than ten people back home who could deal with the Red Cap in a martial duel, even if the puppet’s attributes were restricted to its opponent’s level. It was only at the peak of the Formation Stage, but it made no mistakes as far as Zac could see. Every attack, evasion, block, and dodge were incredibly efficient. Meanwhile, its incredible durability allowed it to fight aggressively, trading blows for blows and coming out on top.

Zac was perhaps even more impressed by this than Kruta’s dominant display. Just how skilled had the puppeteer been to create something like this? To create tens of thousands of them, even?

If Kruta had only fought with two arms, they would likely have been locked in a stalemate. However, those cracks appearing across the puppet after just seconds of fighting were telling. Meanwhile, Zac noticed matching runes had started lighting up on the spectral warrior and Kruta. They matched those on the swords and seemed to imbue him with further strength, and his swings grew increasingly ferocious.

The skills, the Dao, the combat style, and the weapons. They were all connected and in perfect harmony. The weapons were likely forged for Kruta specifically, taking into account his path and talents. That was one aspect where Zac couldn’t compare to established factions. Hopefully, he’d get there by the end of Hegemony.

A pang of danger warned Zac the Red Cap wouldn’t give up without a fight, and a huge blast of cutting blades erupted before Zac could warn his companion. The storm was similar to his [Nature’s Edge] though far more condensed. Most Peak E-grade cultivators would be ripped to shreds if caught in such a domain, but Kruta only roared.

The scream was empowered by Cosmic Energy and Dao, though Zac wasn’t sure it was a skill. A pure wall of power crushed the cutting blades and allowed him to continue dismantling the puppet. However, a third party joined the fray just as Kruta cut off one of the Red Cap’s arms—four Hero Souls who had already drawn their weapons.

“They’re feral!” Kruta swore, but Zac didn’t need the warning.

These new arrivals were different than the ones they’d encountered before. They carried intense amounts of resentment, making their armor appear mottled with blood. Rather than heroic warriors, they felt like vengeful ghosts.

“You deal with the puppet,” Zac said as [Verun’s Bite] appeared in his hand. “I wanted to test these guys in either case.”

“Let’s compete for who finishes first,” Kruta grinned.

“How is that fair?” Zac laughed as he moved between Kruta and the Hero Souls. “Your guy is halfway done already.”

The lingering effect of the lightning field was gone, and his muscles had long since stopped spasming. Four vines shot out from his back, forming wide arcs that targeted the Hero Souls from the side. He essentially created a funnel, herding them toward himself, making sure none targeted Kruta.

“Remember to use our Dao of Conflict,” Kruta reminded from behind, just as the puppet began gathering energy again. “Ah, this bastard has another domain?”

The Hero Souls were only fifty meters away by that point, their swords turning into bloody arcs as they ripped apart Vivi’s vines without stopping. New vines grew to replace what was lost with the help of the Branch of the Kalpataru, each ferociously digging at the vengeful memories. A few vines managed to sneak past the ghosts’ defenses, but Zac noted the effect was only decent. Imbuing your attacks with Dao was usually enough to deal with intangible beings like elementals and ghosts, but the Hero Souls were a bit special.

A few of Vivi’s lashes slammed into the Hero Souls with full power, and they reacted as a normal cultivator would. They either blocked or had to bear the brunt of the attack using their armor. Other attacks passed right through their bodies like the warriors were nothing but projections. It even looked like the Hero Souls knew, or perhaps even controlled, when they were corporeal and when they were just memories.

Imbuing the vines with his Dao of Life only had minimal impact, just like the missives explained. You couldn’t damage them when intangible, but you disturbed whatever held the memories together. It would quicken their disintegration if you just kept at it. A few Daos were more effective than others, such as the Daos of Time and Emotions, but the most effective was the Dao of Conflict. The Dao of Conflict didn’t disrupt the Hero Souls, it locked them in and forced them to stay corporeal.

Zac stepped forward, his perception shifting as he became one with his path. The ancient battlefield was no longer just the ruins of an ancient struggle. It had become a lesson in the fundamental laws of the universe.

The Hero Souls moved like veteran soldiers rather than beings who had lost their rationality to bloodlust. They tried to flank Zac and surround him, but Zac was an army of one. [Verun’s Bite] sang, empowered by the law of evolutionary progress and the soothing breath of the world. Attacks were averted, and defenses were breached.

The Hero Souls were like hyenas trying to nip at the heels of a far greater predator. Zac worked methodically to disrupt their cooperation and damage their forms. As he moved, a huge weight lifted off his shoulders, and he attacked in accordance with his Evolutionary Stance.

The past years had been spent under the yoke of hostile and opposing Daos. His technique and convictions had been under constant attack by truths that were often far more refined than his own. Now that the encouraging winds of Conflict had replaced the suppression, he felt like he’d been reborn.

There was a fluidity to his motions he hadn’t felt before, a deeper connection to his technique. The years of suffering had brought a reward beyond treasures and Mana. Being exposed to so many concepts had refined him. A rough gemstone had been polished, just like how endless tribulations had refined his blueprint in the simulation array.

Swirling winds of War formed a small arena around Zac and the Hero Souls as he tried to break through the iron wall of swords and shields. It was slightly disruptive, fighting with beings that weren’t fully tangible. A scream of danger accompanied a failed block, where the Hero Soul’s sword passed right through [Verun’s Bite] to strike at Zac’s neck.

Simultaneously, another warrior stabbed at him from the left, blocking off his path of escape. Zac didn’t mind. Instead of dodging or backing down, he pushed forward. A hand imbued with the Branch of the War Axe ripped out a chunk of mottled armor while Zac cut off the attacker’s hand. Meanwhile, Vivi formed a web of death, stabbing at the slits in the Hero Souls’ helmets and forcing them to back down.

It didn’t change the situation much. The severed hand regrew, only costing the Hero Soul some of its accumulated energy. And they had a lot of energy—it would take over a minute to exhaust the Hero Souls in this manner. Of course, this was while Zac only fought according to his Dao without using it. Zac would have liked to experiment with his techniques and Daos some more, but he couldn’t mess around in the Stand.

The group from before was a poignant reminder of that.

The axe-wielding Dao apparition was already teeming with vigor because of the environment, and it released a dense stream of Dao that coursed into [Verun’s Bite]. Meanwhile, a dense Dao Field empowered by [Spiritual Void] covered the combatants, making the Hero Souls appear as mortal men. The memories could no longer phase through his attacks, and each collision destroyed significant amounts of energy.

The previously ferocious spirits flickered precariously in just ten seconds, and the battle was over in another five. These Hero Souls were ultimately not a match to Zac’s technique, even when he restrained himself to hide his most recent gains. Of course, just like the Red Cap, these were just the lowest forms of souls wandering the Stand.

“Impressive,” Kruta nodded, a pile of scrap already lying by his feet. “Your axe is doing almost as much work as my four swords. I’ll have to ask my elders if they can help me reach that state when I return.”

“And you’re sure we can’t collect the puppets?” Zac asked.

“They’re only alive thanks to the unique environment,” Kruta said with a shake of his head. “Their arrays fail, and the armor turns more brittle than mortal material after you bring them out.”

“Then let’s go before that scrap heap reforms,” Zac sighed.

They set off again, just in time. The battle had lasted less than a minute, yet Zac could feel how the Dao of Conflict had grown agitated in the area, concentrating on their location. If they stayed, problems would soon follow.

The sky rumbled as they ran, and a gout of lava erupted in the distance. Danger awaited around any corner, and there was a palpable sense of things bubbling under the surface. It wasn’t just because of the increasingly thick Dao of Conflict, either. Fate was gathering at the heart of the realm. In a place like that, gathering Fate meant danger. It also meant opportunity, and Zac felt a smile creep up his lips.

“Like I said, you have the madness,” Kruta laughed. “But don’t get cocky. Soon, we’ll have to use our skills to deal with our enemies, creating a far nastier response. I’ve almost been sent off to my ancestors a few times in here already.”

“I know,” Zac nodded. “It just feels nice to be in a place resonating with you.”

“Then why do you keep taking those suicidal missions in places that don’t welcome you?”

“We all have our methods to progress,” Zac shrugged.

Another two hours passed without encountering any large issues. Kruta spotted a far off cultivator, but he was moving toward the entrance. He flashed away when he was spotted. Zac got better and better at fusing his Dao Field with the environment, but they were still attacked by puppets, towers, and Hero Souls every ten minutes or so. Kruta already had a constipated look after having one attempt at communication after another rebuffed by the Hero Souls.

Eventually, they reached the edge of the grassy plains, where a xeric tundra replaced it. The region looked far less hospitable than the ethereal grass, but it provided far more coverage in the form of hills, escarpments, and tor formations as large as skyscrapers. Of course, there was a good chance that many of those boulders hid lethal arrays, but they made it a lot harder to get spotted from a distance.

“This is the entrance to the real battlefield,” Kruta commented as he pointed at a twenty-man Hero Soul squad flying in the distance.

In its lead rode a warrior atop something like a twin-tailed tiger. The captain was clearly much stronger than their subjects, and Zac guessed it was the equivalent of a Blue Cloak Puppet.

“From here on out, we might meet stronger enemies, and the fortifications can actually hurt us. You, anyway.”

“You do have pretty thick skin,” Zac said. “Didn’t even flinch when you ambushed the Hero Souls while talking about how you admired them.”

“Bah, those things were all long gone. My ancestor hasn’t been able to connect to a single one,” Kruta said, settling an expectant eye on Zac. “So, are we finally done skulking around? I bet we’ll encounter more people now that we’ve left the starting zone.”

“Fine, let’s swap,” Zac agreed after some final deliberations.

Soon, Zac stood in his original form without trying to hide it. Kruta followed suit, extracting all the scales across his body with the same bone as before.

“And if we meet any people?” the barbarian asked.

“Rob or kill, depending on their actions,” Zac confirmed.

“Good!”

They entered the tundra following Kruta’s map, doing their best to avoid the larger squads. It was still impossible to avoid the random stragglers, and it always felt like they were one step away from disaster. They’d barely avoided one squad of Hero Souls before they were forced to dismantle a trio of Red Caps.

But the scene was nothing compared to what they stumbled onto after traveling for two hours. Puppets, hundreds of them, pouring out from two spatial gates. Most were the Red Caps, but they also spotted almost a dozen Blue Cloaks. There was even a White Sigil leading them, and Zac shuddered at the menacing aura it emitted. They formed orderly squads as they marched toward the depths of the Stand.

Against this army, there was only escape. Even if they managed to destroy all these things, it would be by exhausting all their skills and attracting half the Stand to their location.

“Wow,” Zac whispered from within the emergency isolation array Kruta had prepared as they slowly backed away to hide behind a rock formation.

“Well, I haven’t seen that before,” Kruta agreed. “I wonder where they’re coming from.”

“What should we—” Zac said, but he stopped upon feeling a weak ripple.

It was so minute it could just have been a small fluctuation brought by the disturbance of the massive army, but Zac’s gut told him otherwise. More importantly, the sense of danger that had haunted him for weeks flared up.

This was no coincidence. His enemies had found him.

50

HUNTER AND PREY

The ripple was gone as quickly as it came, giving no hint of where it originated. Judging by Kruta’s expression, he hadn’t noticed it at all.

“What is it?” the barbarian said with a raised brow. “Surely, some parading puppets isn’t enough for you to lose your composure?”

“It’s not that,” Zac grimaced as he tried to pinpoint the source of the ripple. “Remember what I said before?”

“Your enemies?” Kruta said with a low voice, his eyes darting back and forth.

“I’m afraid so. This might be the time we split up.”

“And let you hog all the fun?” Kruta scoffed. “I don’t know you well, but I can feel you’ll be the key to this event. I’m not letting you sneak off alone now.”

“You might come to regret it.”

“What regret? Getting a few more people to fight? More fun for Kruta,” the barbarian guffawed. “Besides, if things get out of hand, I’ll just flee. I won’t say I’m invincible, but pinning me down here is almost impossible.”

Zac looked at Kruta for a few seconds before slowly nodding. “Thank you. I’ll do what I can to take on the heat, but don’t overdo it.”

“No need for all that mushiness. I’m guessing you have a plan in place.”

“Well, not really,” Zac said, scratching his chin.

“What?”

“I mean, a wise man once told me, ‘What’s the use of calculating and thinking when you’re an idiot?’” Zac coughed. “So, I just figured I’d drag them into the heart of the zone and deal with it there. The more chaotic, the better. That way, it’ll become a brawl, and I’m pretty good at those.”

Kruta blankly stared at Zac, then he started laughing. “Good advice! I like it!”

Zac thoughtfully looked in the direction of the puppet army. “What about those guys? Will they create a problem?”

“Our old path isn’t reliable if those soulless things can pop out of nowhere,” Kruta hummed as he took out the map and made some adjustments. “Well, we could take a bit of a detour. Should be some empty pockets now that they’re gathering.”

Zac nodded. “How much time would that add?”

“The Stand is not that big, as far as zones go. We’ll reach the center in two days, provided we don’t get caught up in this mess. Detours shouldn’t add more than half a day. Or…”

“Or what?” Zac asked.

“Or we stalk the puppets from a distance,” Kruta shrugged. “White Sigils have very strong perception. If we get attacked by your enemies, they’ll probably get pulled over. If not, we can drag the fight to the puppets. The puppets should also act as a magnet for the Hero Souls, and they’re heading right where we need to go.”

“Sounds good,” Zac said. “How do we avoid getting discovered by the puppets, though? Can’t they sense our energy?”

“Uh,” Kruta said, blankly looking ahead. “Well, we’ll just be careful and work hard on harmonizing with the environment?”

“Alright, whatever. We’ll just have to run if they start swarming us.”

The two opted to keep a ten-minute distance from the puppet army as they ran along a ridge. The puppets followed a straight path, which was quite easy to follow. After a few hours, Zac and Kruta even ran ahead to avoid any nasty surprises. Occasionally, the White Sigil sent out scouts in their direction, but Kruta was quite sensitive to the changes on the battlefield. Every time danger approached, they got out of the way in time.

Others weren’t as lucky. An eruption of energy made them stop and nudge closer to the puppet army, where they spotted a trio surrounded by frenzied puppets. Over a dozen broken puppets lay on the ground, but the cultivators were still in desperate straits. They tried to break out, but the Blue Cloak puppets had created a barrier. On top of that, dozens of Red Caps were in the way.

Suddenly, a shroud of mist was released from the White Sigil’s helmet, and space veritably exploded as it flashed forward. The cultivator tried to move out of the way, but the puppet was too quick. The commander pierced straight through the guest’s hastily erected defense before goring her with its lance.

A spectral hand appeared beneath one of the two remaining cultivators, dragging him into a mysterious portal that looked like a small pond. The final man tried something similar, but the White Sigil was already upon him. A Dao-empowered stab forcibly interrupted the escape treasure, and the poor man died a moment later. Had this been a Green Zone, he could have called on his guide to send him out of the Perennial Vastness.

But this was a Red Zone, following the law of the jungle you’d see in the wild. There were no safety nets. You’d have to get out on your own.

“Let’s go,” Kruta sighed, inching back to avoid being dragged into the misfortune of others.

A storm of Hero Souls had already hit the flank of the puppet army, though Zac could tell the puppets were far superior. Luckily, the White Sigil either hadn’t noticed them, or hadn’t bothered pursuing. It focused on the incoming Hero Souls, and the army began moving ten minutes later. By that point, the broken puppets had already mended enough for them to walk on their own.

The two avoided getting hounded by the puppets, but their journey wasn’t without headaches. The puppet army was a beacon for the Hero Souls, just like Kruta suspected. Some ran straight to their deaths, while other squads changed course upon discovering Zac and Kruta. They were constantly forced into fights, turning them into unwilling meat shields for the puppet army.

Zac was on edge, targeted from every direction. After the first ripple, he hadn’t seen a hint of the enemies hiding in the shadows. That didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone looking or following him. An assassin or scout who could reach the Perennial Vastness wouldn’t have much difficulty avoiding Zac’s scans. Even the steady Dao Heart he’d tempered through endless struggle started to fray from the uncertainty.

Knowing he’d been exposed put him under a lot of pressure, and he was afraid to display the limits of his attributes or his technique. The few times he was forced to use skills, he even opted to delay the activation or integrate the skills with his infighting in a suboptimal way. It left him with a few wounds, but it was worth it if his floundering could create some openings down the road.

Kruta didn’t share Zac’s misgivings. The barbarian had a grand time fighting and constantly chattered about the treasures waiting for him at the end of the rainbow. By the time a few hours passed, Zac had heard over thirty theories. Some were quite normal, like them finding the corpse of Saeward along with his Spatial Rings. Others were more out there, such as Kruta’s suggestion the whole event was a coronation trial. Whoever reached Saeward’s resting place would become the king of the empire Saeward once ruled, gaining endless riches and vast armies.

Another one who enjoyed herself was Vivi. The increasingly powerful Hero Souls had already cut off or shredded miles’ worth of vines, but she wasn’t deterred. She even seemed to enjoy the challenge, though she was a bit miffed the Hero Souls had no bodies to consume. It was almost as though she’d returned to her youth since absorbing the energies inside the Gate of Life. She hit harder and faster, and her vines regrew quicker.

It was like the vines had gone through a full Cosmic Cycle and improved a stage, yet Zac found it hard to be enthused by the transformation. Her powerup wasn’t the result of a real breakthrough. It was more like all the nutrients he’d provided allowed her to return to her former glory. But that came at the cost of her lifespan. Vivi was essentially pushing herself beyond her limits, hastening her demise.

When Zac got her, Heda said she’d live for another century, two if lucky. But her life force was like a flickering flame, and Zac doubted Vivi could live on for even half the lowest estimate. It filled him with a sense of powerlessness, as there was nothing he could do. He hoped to prove Heda wrong through his Luck and fortuitous encounters. To change Vivi’s destiny as he had Verun’s. It had proven futile. The treasures he’d provided only gave temporary reprieve and the strength to keep going at her current pace.

Not only that, but Vivi transmitted most of the nutrients to Haro.

The Heavenrender Seed, in contrast, was a seed no longer. Haro had finally transformed into a dual-affinity sapling after absorbing Zac’s Daos of Life and Conflict for over a decade, along with enough treasures to bankrupt a D-grade clan. It only reached his knees inside the Worldring and couldn’t yet utilize the vast amounts of energy stored in its body. Still, it emitted an incredibly fierce aura. Even now, it happily gobbled the Dao in the environment, showing no signs of being satiated.

A full day passed in this manner, and things reached a point where Zac wished someone would just attack him and get it over with. Had he overestimated his attractiveness as bait? Were they really planning to target him on his return, only sending some scouts to track his movements and report back?

An hour later, there were finally some developments, but not how he’d hoped. First, they found a second puppet army to their left, sandwiching them between two squads. When they decided to break away from the puppets that had trailed them for the past day, they realized these two armies weren’t the only ones. There were over five armies in front of them, one of which was over three times the size of the other ones they’d spotted.

“And there’s another one,” Kruta said twenty minutes later, whistling as they observed an eighth puppet army walking through a canyon. “We might be able to pass them by, but we’re in trouble if we get discovered. The squads are too bunched-up. I fear they might be able to communicate.”

“Even if we pass this squad, there’s probably another one waiting beyond,” Zac sighed. “Probably not worth it.”

“I wonder how many squads there are,” Kruta muttered. “If the whole Stand is spawning them like this, we’re talking about an army in the tens of thousands.”

“More importantly, we’re getting boxed in,” Zac commented. “We need to make a decision, or we might end up in the middle of a hostile legion.”

Kruta nodded and took out his map. “If we head to the right of the original group, we’ll enter the minefields after two hours. I doubt there’ll be puppet armies in there. Their energies would trigger one pillar after another. We should avoid that if possible. However, going left would put us closer to the Edge. We wouldn’t be boxed in by puppets there, but we’d end up with our backs against the wall.”

The Edge wasn’t an actual cliff but a vast river that could be considered one end of the Stand. The river itself was made from liquid metal and contained shocking amounts of deadly eruptions of the Dao of Conflict. There were even dangerous beasts hiding in the depths. As far as E-grade cultivators were concerned, it might as well be the underworld river since crossing it meant death.

The only reason the Edge wasn’t considered the fourth danger was that it was static, and cultivators could just avoid it. There hadn’t been any reports of surges or creatures emerging from the waters, so you could walk along its shores without issue. It was simply the edge of the Stand, hence its name.

Most Red Zones had these limiters, and the general consensus was that they were intended to keep the guest out of the far more dangerous sections of the Perennial Vastness. For example, the true dangers of the Calamity were far beyond what even Hegemons could withstand.

“I have fished for treasures in the calm banks. Let me tell you, that water is no joke. In the inner regions, we won’t last more than a few seconds if we’re forced inside.”

“The Minefield isn’t much better,” Zac muttered. “Especially now that the region is waking up.”

“I think our safest bet is to slow down for an hour or two and let all these squads merge,” Kruta offered. “Then we can follow their tail.”

Zac grunted as he looked at the empty horizon behind them. They were roughly one hour ahead of the first puppet army, using them to shore up their rear. To stop and let them pass… was perhaps the most dangerous option of all. He could feel it. The main fate of the region was gathering ahead, but a dangerous wind of uncertainty was coming at him from behind.

“Stopping is not an option, and the minefield is too unpredictable,” Zac said. “We’ll move toward the Edge.”

“If you say so.”

They traveled diagonally toward the river for the next four hours, narrowly dodging one squad after another. There really were thousands on the move, all of them heading toward the heart of the zone. One wrong step would result in a cascade of deadly disasters. The two had tried to get a glimpse of what they were walking toward, but turbulent winds shrouded the central Stand.

Oddly enough, they met fewer and fewer Hero Souls as they progressed. Their best guess was that all the memories in the region had been dragged toward the center, possibly to stave off the puppet attack. Zac could only imagine what kind of war raged beyond the horizon. It felt as though they were walking through a memory where the ancient battle was being re-enacted.

Knowing the Edge was nearby filled Zac with a small sense of safety, and they sped up on their way to the center. Eventually, they reached the obscuring shroud, and they looked at each other hesitantly.

“That’s it?” Zac asked. “Didn’t you say it was almost impossible to reach the inner reaches of the Stand? We just strolled here.”

“I… I don’t know,” Kruta said. “I expected things to get worse, not better. Something in the center must be siphoning all the energy. I bet things are very different on the other side.”

“Can you deal with it?” Zac asked.

“Look who you’re talking to!” Kruta scoffed. “I am a future war chief. How could I lose my mind on the battlefield?”

“Fine, should we check things out?”

“What about your enemies?”

“Looks like they’re not coming…” Zac glanced back.

Still nothing.

“Then let’s fish in the muddy waters and deal with the rest later,” Kruta said eagerly.

The storm wasn’t deadly like what Zac encountered in the Calamity, but it was still extremely unsettling. Vision was only a hundred meters, and energy signals were completely muted. At any moment, they could run into a troupe of puppets. The barbarian eventually slowed down and looked around hesitantly.

“This is a Warhaze Array,” Kruta said as he took out a bone. “Stay close or we’ll get split up.”

They continued for another hour, at which point the ground started rumbling. The vibrations were slight and erratic, and Zac could picture the source—powerful attacks colliding, making the whole world tremble.

“War,” Kruta muttered with a mix of excitement and trepidation.

After another ten minutes, the haze started to give way. A sudden pang of danger made Zac drag Kruta out of the way, just in time to avoid a massive pillar of flames. It was over ten meters across and contained enough force to incinerate a Hegemon. The two shared a look before continuing.

The energy was a punch to the face, and Zac was forced to stop and enter a Void State. The killing intent alone was enough to drive one mad, yet it paled by the storm of Conflict that filled the air. A few steps later, the world came into focus, and even Kruta couldn’t help but gasp.

The world had gone mad, with hundreds of massive eruptions going off every second. There were tens of thousands of puppets storming a far larger army of Hero Souls, and the battleline stretched farther than Zac could see. Both sides were empowered by the environment, constantly unleashing powerful attacks that could pass as skills. Floating above the sea of puppets were hundreds of White Sigils, and Zac’s heart lurched upon spotting no less than ten Golden Champions.

Even then, the Hero Souls weren’t overwhelmed. The puppets had their champions, but so did the ghosts. Their battles shook the skies, and the fallout from one of those duels nearly incinerated them. And the Hero Souls were constantly getting reinforcements from an enormous, moated castle behind their lines.

There was no doubt about it. That was the command center. A cloud of Conflict so pure Zac couldn’t even look at it hovered above the towers. The energy in the castle was so dense it looked like a solid pillar. But how did that help them? Zac sighed and looked at the impenetrable wall of destruction between them and their goal. There was no muddy water to fish in here. There was only death.

Battlements roared and space itself cried, unable to withstand the unending fury. It felt like the dimension itself was barely hanging on.

Was this how a war between Hegemons looked?

“What should we do?” Kruta whispered as they backed away. “That’s not a conflict we can get involved with.”

The Warhaze Array muted the deafening clamor, and the previously ominous shroud now provided a sense of safety. However, that only lasted a second before Zac’s eyes widened in alarm. If they couldn’t sense such a massive war through the haze, then didn’t that mean…

“Wait,” Zac whispered. “We’re—”

The world shuddered as a huge pillar of light slammed down, sealing them in a cage two hundred meters across.

“Trapped,” Zac sighed.

51

CANDOR

Zac swore as one rune after another sprung up around the shield, and he shot toward the closest wall. A herculean swing slammed into the wall of light, but Zac felt like he was fighting the whole world. His attack only left a discoloration that was soon washed away. Breaking through this thing would require far more energy. A moment later, the pillar had closed, forming a solid dome.

He should have expected as much—these people were obviously prepared. They must have scouted ahead to know there’d be such a good location to launch an ambush. Between the haze and the barrier, who’d notice even if they unleashed their skills to the fullest?

Zac’s eyes lit up at the thought. That’s right. They were only a hundred meters from the shroud’s edge. They’d been even farther in when they almost got blasted by the pillar of fire. It was only a matter of time before another attack from one of the Golden Champions or White Sigils reached this section, and the barrier was a huge target.

But just as the hope was born, it was murdered. The dome was moving, dragging them away from the edge of the haze.

“This is new,” Kruta curiously muttered as he was forced to jog along. “Movable and sturdy. Should we break out?”

That question was likely what his enemies had planned. It would be troublesome if his captor planned to drag him over to the region through which the puppet reinforcements would arrive.

“Can you tell what direction it’s moving?” Zac asked.

Kruta fiddled with a few bones for a couple of seconds before nodding. “Out and toward the Edge.”

“So away from the puppets,” Zac sighed with relief. “For now, let’s see what they have planned. But if they move too far…”

“Then they’re dragging us into a trap,” Kruta said before laughing. “Well, another one, I guess?”

“You two are quite laid-back,” an unfamiliar voice drifted from the haze.

The next moment, a party of fifteen people appeared through the shroud, and Zac noted with interest that the dome opened a hole to let them inside. It separated bidirectionally, meaning wandering puppets would have to fight their way through. The pillar stopped, and the area was sealed as soon as the new group entered.

The one who had spoken before was a beautiful woman in the front. She was a human, and Zac was surprised to see her complexion reminded him of Karz. She had olive skin, golden eyes, and a mane of blonde hair. She was decked in gear resembling white templar armor, where only her head was exposed.

Her breastplate was made of solid white metal, while the other parts were protected by chainmail. Golden scripts covered every inch of her armor, all radiating a pure light that could only belong to the Peak of Taiji. A golden crown inlaid with seven jewels was atop her head, each emitting a frightful aura.

Her gear gave off a familiar feeling—like the black armor Uona wore during their final battle. It had proven incredibly difficult to break through, to the point Zac had been forced to kill her with the Remnants. And this armor gave off an even greater pressure. Was it a War Regalia? It was the first time Zac had seen an E-grade cultivator able to power such a thing. Even he couldn’t, at least not anything he could get his hands on.

With the large cape behind her back, she reminded Zac of his [Arbiter of the Abyss] transformation. However, this woman held a very different aura. She emitted the pressure and air of an empress, and Zac was almost filled with a desire to kneel. The Conflict in the air was curtailed and turned into a sword against her enemies. She was a beacon of light in this world of falsehood, her mere presence showing the path.

Such a powerful Mana domain. She had to be a ninth-echelon guest, at least.

Behind her were fourteen people, ten of whom wore identical equipment. They looked every bit the part of soldiers in an army as the Hero Souls, and the runes on their equipment indicated they came from the same faction as the young woman. All of them had a glowing rune behind their back, where streams of power entered the leader.

A War Array, and a very potent one at that. When fueled by ten powerhouses at the same level, the effect likely eclipsed most Berserking Methods. It was also the answer to how she could use War Regalia without sacrificing much of her own energy capacity. The warriors were not just batteries, though. They all had auras that would place them in the upper tiers of all guests. One by one, they weren’t a threat to Zac. Together, they’d be a headache.

Finally, there were four mages or clerics hiding behind the meat wall. Their features were covered in hoods, but their hands were held in different mudras. Zac couldn’t be certain, but he believed they were chanting something under their breath. Most likely, they were responsible for maintaining the barrier, while possibly assisting with the War Array. After all, four runes floated behind their backs, matching the four runes that covered the cardinal directions of the dome.

There was also a string of energy connecting them to a fifth rune placed just beneath the tip of the dome. An identical, inverted version hovered outside the shield like a mirror image. Both emitted a powerful Dao of Conflict. Zac glanced at the runes suspiciously. Something about them was odd—it didn’t seem like the Dao of the guests. It was rather the path of the Stand. Had they stolen a corner of this realm’s Dao and used it to harmonize the domain with the environment?

Did it allow them to use the ambient energy to power the barrier? If so, then it would be extremely difficult to crack open.

He’d known his enemies would be dangerous—why else would he have felt this looming threat for weeks? Even then, the situation was far more troublesome than his projections. Being confronted by fifteen people normally wasn’t a big deal for him, but it was different in the Perennial Vastness. The leader alone gave off a pressure that told him he’d have to go all-out. Worse, all her followers had dense auras of elite warriors tempered by blood. They weren’t the kind of glasshouse elites he’d occasionally run into here.

That wasn’t the only issue. Zac was drawing a complete blank. He was certain he’d never seen her before, and her appearance didn’t match the description of any famous high-echelon guests who ran the more powerful coalitions. Who was she, and why was she targeting him? Was it really related to Ultom?

However, the drastic change in Kruta’s demeanor told Zac everything he needed to know.

“That’s Valsa Planur,” Kruta said with undisguised fear. “Of all the guests, why her? We’re in trouble. I—”

“Don’t worry,” Zac said, glancing at the light dome. “I’ll get you out of here.”

“I’m sorry, her origins are too scary,” Kruta sighed. “Contending with her has ramifications beyond this realm.”

“I understand,” Zac nodded. “I’ll—”

The roaring sound of a forest sprouting from the ground drowned out Zac’s words. He was gone the next moment, entering the closest tree of [Ancestral Woods] before it was fully grown. As he stepped into one sprout, he simultaneously emerged right behind a clump of three guards. Their swords were already ripping toward Zac’s throat when he emerged, but a golden domain strained their movements.

A set of pillars emerged from where Zac once stood as though they’d appeared out of nowhere. Both appearance and position were made possible by starting the activation with Cosmic Energy, then instantly finishing the process with Void Energy at the exact moment suppression would have the greatest effect.

Four vines slightly delayed the incoming attacks, and two small delays were all Zac needed. A condensed scar four meters long ripped right through the warriors before they had a chance to react. From there, it didn’t continue toward the other guards or even Valsa herself. Instead, it shot toward the solitary rune of Conflict floating in the middle of the dome. A shockwave of Void and Dao-empowered leaves created utter chaos that prevented any interruption.

Zac was working against the clock. He could feel the storms of Cosmic Energy surging in the surrounding enemies, like ancient beasts awakening from their slumber. A flash forward and the activation of [Void Zone] strangled the Dao and the energy of the mages, who found themselves at his mercy.

Two enemies fell in the blink of an eye, but a scream of deadly danger warned him time was up. Zac tried to move out of the way, when a glowing sword pierced right through the protective barrier of [Empyrean Aegis] and tore a huge wound in his side. Eight attacks were right on the heels of Valsa’s strike, and Zac was forced to eat two as he desperately held Valsa back.

It felt like he was caught inside a beast’s maw, with the remaining enemies collapsing upon him. Valsa’s attacks were fast and ruthless, and he was alarmed that he couldn’t match her in either speed or strength. Zac had a hard time imagining her raw attributes were as high as his, but that War Regalia of hers likely provided both offense and defense. Just dealing with her pushed Zac and his technique to the limit, but there were also seven warriors tacking on the pressure.

Avoiding everything was impossible. He blocked what he could while Vivi worked overtime, but it wasn’t enough. He could only prioritize the strikes, making sure lethal attacks were demoted to grievous wounds and that crippling wounds didn’t hurt anything that would directly weaken his combat potential. Organs and innards could be regrown, but he couldn’t lose a leg or his axe arm. That would be the nail in the coffin.

Zac’s body screamed in agony, but a bloody smile spread regardless. This was the kind of situation where fate and paths were tested. It was at the edge of life and death where your convictions crystallized into something greater, where you could glimpse what waited beyond. Zac wanted to test out the properties of the armor, but he had a hard time staying alive, even with less than a second passing.

Waves of murderous intent flooded the surroundings as he stepped forward to fight fire with fire. But he was yanked back, dragged away from a surprised-looking Valsa. It was Vivi who had wound herself around a nearby tree, and Zac entered its trunk after shooting out a burst of Void-generated fractal leaves. Simultaneously, [Rapturous Divide] reached the rune in the sky.

Zac appeared right next to a surprised Kruta, inwardly shocked at the wretched state of his body. He’d known these people would be strong, but he hadn’t expected to almost get himself killed by an opening exchange.

A loud rumble shook the whole domain as the spatial blade of [Rapturous Divide] ripped into the large golden rune. With two of the mages executed and the remaining duo forced to create shields to block [Nature’s Edge], the rune flickered ominously. Large scars appeared on the dome, but Zac inwardly swore upon recognizing the damage was only temporary. It was just enough for Kruta to turn into a streak of light that shot right through one of the exits, fleeing west.

‘Hold out! I’ll bring reinforcements.’

Zac made no sign he’d heard Kruta’s voice, but he still felt some warmth as he turned back toward the armored woman. There were no guarantees Kruta was telling the truth, but Zac believed him. Kruta would try to drag a puppet army to their side. Of course, he wouldn’t bet his life on Kruta succeeding. This was his mess, and he had to rely on himself to clean it up.

His opening gambit was a success. Zac had two goals with his ambush: thin out the number of supporting warriors and provide Kruta with a way out of the cage. He’d considered going for a Void-summoned [Arcadia’s Judgement] right out the gate, but his instincts told him it would backfire.

That strategy had served him well before, but these people were too powerful. He’d already been given a taste of the leader’s power. She would have been able to mitigate much of the skill’s damage by herself, and the rest were strong enough to survive the aftershock. Ultimately, [Arcadia’s Judgement] was too slow even when activated with Void Energy, and it was better to keep his finisher in the pocket for a time when it simply couldn’t be stopped. By using [Rapturous Divide], he dealt a significant blow without expending too much force.

Surprisingly, the enemies weren’t following up on the initial exchange. They stood like statues, except for one of the mages who sent healing waves to those cut by [Nature’s Edge]. Taking a breather was fine with Zac. He was covered in wounds, and the one on his side was especially sinister. This Valsa had at least one Late Dao Branch that was currently wreaking havoc on his organs.

Luckily, his body was incredibly good at dealing with these matters, and the Kill Energy of five dead elites was already pouring into [Surging Vitality]. Seeing how desperate the situation was, Zac also fixed some of the more problematic wounds with small amounts of Creation Energy. For a few seconds, no one said anything, until the armored woman spoke up.

“I wonder how you accomplished that just now. You carry surprising secrets,” Valsa said, glancing in the direction Kruta fled. “You might have been able to escape if you joined your friend.”

“Why would I escape?” Zac said as he cracked his neck. “You’ve been targeting me for a while now, and I finally have you in front of me.”

“Oh? You knew?” the woman said, a small smile spreading on her lips. “How embarrassing.”

“As far as I know, we have no enmity toward each other,” Zac continued. “Want to explain why you’re here?”

Zac was curious about the answer and had everything to benefit by stalling. Apart from his rapidly healing body, there was Kruta, who was hopefully bringing chaos to the battle. He also needed to find the weaknesses in the dome. Those runes had so perfectly fused it with the realm that Zac wasn’t sure the puppets would attack it. He was also no closer to figuring out what powered it or how it could move.

Without dealing with that, he was trapped. Reactivating [Ancestral Woods] with Void Energy was useless if Valsa could just move the domain to his location.

At least their operations had to be costly. Whether it was the array or the War Regalia, they had to drain large amounts of energy every second. The more time they wasted, the better his position would be.

“I think you know,” she said. “The Left Imperial Palace is emerging. Some are fated. Others have to seize fate.”

“Then you’re just a greedy thief,” Zac sighed.

“A thief?” Pealing laughter echoed through the square, and Zac was surprised by the shocking killing intent the followers suddenly emitted.

They hadn’t so much as frowned when he killed five of their companions. Now, they looked ready to eat his flesh and drink his blood? These people were extremely loyal. Making them scatter after killing a few more wasn’t an option.

“Perhaps in your eyes. But the pillars were made by the Empire. They belong with us. Your individual fate cannot match the Imperial Destiny.”

“So you’re from one of the traitor clans,” Zac said, putting two and two together. “That explains some things.”

“We did what we had to survive. How does that make us traitors?” a hint of sharpness touched her voice. It looked like she was about to continue, but she looked at the sky. “Ah, here we are.”

At first, Zac didn’t understand what she was talking about. Then, the haze above the dome was dispersed by a radiant glow. It was like a morning sun had risen to drive away the gloom, even if the view was still the familiar night sky of the Stand of Saeward. The stars moved about, and no attacks were raining down from above.

Then, he saw it.

Zac’s eyes widened as the stars rearranged themselves, forming an enormous rune in the sky. It wasn’t an array, it felt more like a fundamental law of the universe taken form. This was far beyond the scope an E-grade cultivator could accomplish, yet Zac’s instincts told him this wasn’t an illusion. That thought alone was incredibly terrifying. Was one of the old monsters in the Perennial Vastness working with his enemy?

Candor.

That was what the rune meant. Not in the standard Multiverse alphabet but rather in the script of the Limitless Empire.

“Under the Imperial Edict of Candor, justice will prevail,” Valsa smiled. “There can be no duplicity.”

52

EDICT

Duplicity? Zac frowned as he had a worrying premonition, and he knew the situation had gone from bad to worse the moment [Immutability of Eoz] woke up. It was trying to purge something from his body. Judging by its persistence, it wasn’t going well. Zac sent a tendril toward the Specialty Core at his center, where his fears were confirmed.

Sealed.

An intangible barrier surrounded the Duplicity Core, utterly sealing its activation. Zac couldn’t tell how the barrier worked or even which Dao it belonged to. Like the enormous rune in the sky, it felt like law rather than Dao.

“It took us some time, but we eventually deduced the trick to your transformation,” Valsa smiled. “You’re truly a marvel. The Undead Empire really went all-out for this pillar’s ascent, modifying a Duplicity Core to such an extent. Even your path is harmonized with the Ultom Courts. Creating a being such as yourself must have been quite an undertaking.

“Still, a modified Duplicity Core is still a Duplicity Core. Nothing is without weaknesses. Thank you for staying put while the Edict found its way here.”

So that’s how it was. He’d wanted to waste time to exhaust their energy, but she was also stalling. The good news was that she seemed to have misunderstood his origin, though that could be a ploy on her part. He’d half-expected her to divulge some pieces of information after displaying a few facets of his bloodline during the initial clash.

[Immutability of Eoz] was still trying to burn through the seal of his Duplicity Core, but it showed no progress, even with Zac using his Dao as a wallbreaker during the conversation. It looked like he’d be stuck with only one class for this battle, which definitely wasn’t within his original plan. He’d planned to go all-out until his Cosmic Energy and skills were exhausted, at which point he’d swap and finish off the beleaguered enemies.

Was his current strength enough? It had to be enough. This imperial wasn’t backing down now that she’d made her move. In comparison to Ultom, what did the Perennial Vastness matter?

Zac’s heart thumped with realization. Valsa shouldn’t even be here, she had no reason to. She came from one of the peak factions in the Multiverse. Yet she’d scrounged up enough tokens for a small army of deathsworn. It had always been about Ultom for her. It was possible she wouldn’t even bother breaking through in this place. He, Ogras, and Catheya would be under constant threat so long as she was alive.

She couldn’t be allowed to leave this realm.

There was no room to hold back, no room for mercy. With the seal in the sky, he would have to put all cards on the table. A storm of Cosmic Energy entered the newly minted fractal on his back, prompting the whole cage to rumble. Meanwhile, a ripple spread through Zac’s Soul Aperture as his Evolutionary Core began spinning.

A construct emerged from the heart of the core, like a submerged statue being dragged out of a lake. Zac’s eyes met Valsa’s, and he could tell she had the same feeling. Both believed themselves the predator before their prey. One way or another, one of them would be proven right today.

“An Imperial Edict?” Zac said with a steely smile as his restrained aura exploded outward. “That’s funny. I have an Edict of my own.”

The air twisted under the immense pressure of Zac’s fully unleashed aura. Meanwhile, his Evolutionary Core was rousing from its leisurely swirl. It released massive amounts of Attuned Mental Energy, and it all went into the thing that had emerged from within the core.

The construct looked like a confusing gordian knot made of dozens of Mental Energy tubes. The moment it appeared, it began extracting large amounts of Mental Energy and Dao from the Evolutionary Core.

There were over fifteen entrances to the maze-like mold but only one exit. From it, a complex stream of intermingled Dao emerged and entered the pathways of [Thousand Lights Avatar]. The Dao passed through Zac’s body with blazing speed before entering the Skill Fractal on his back, [Primal Edict].

It had proven fruitless to cultivate the [Nine Reincarnation Manual] and [Void Vajra Sublimation] during his downtime while traveling or resting. After passing the first major threshold, the energy demands were too high, so Zac had focused some of his free time on other projects. One of them was the [Thousand Lights Avatar], which greatly benefited from Zac’s evolved soul.

Cultivating the supportive technique had been effortless since forming the dual soul spirals. He just needed to urge the spirals to speed up, and they’d release large amounts of pure Mental Energy that could bolster his spiritual body. It still hadn’t reached the point he could perform spectral walks, but it was far more corporeal than when he entered the Perennial Vastness.

More importantly, he’d confirmed that his idea of making pre-arranged braids worked. It began by growing two permanent braids of Mental Energy out of the framework, each one using nine strings. When they were finished, he detached them and moved them to his Soul Aperture. From there, Zac added more and more, making the braid increasingly complex.

Unfortunately, it had proven easier said than done, forming a working mold for a Dao Array, even if he had a working blueprint for his Cosmic Core. And with his odd constitution, he found himself laughably bad at intuiting the correct path. Luckily, Zac found a solution that saved a lot of time. His two Soul Cores were now attuned, and they could nurture the molds on their own by leaving them inside the core.

It was a slow process, and he had to take them out and run Dao through them occasionally. Otherwise, the molds would be reabsorbed into the cores. In return, the Evolutionary Core had run its Dao through the knot tens of thousands of times, allowing it to grow increasingly complex over the past year.

The current iteration had gone beyond the classification of a Dao Braid, though Zac wasn’t sure it could be considered a Dao Array. For now, Zac called them his Dao Molds, and they provided roughly 15% greater power output compared to his old Dao Braids. Even better, they were incredibly convenient to use, making it easier for Zac to instill his attacks with his optimal strength.

The only downside was that the molds currently had only one setting: full blast. Meaning an expenditure of quite a bit of Mental Energy and Dao. That wasn’t a problem right now. Full blast was exactly what he needed.

A vibrant green haze poured out from Zac’s body as [Primal Edict] activated, empowered by the Dao Mold. In return, the remaining ten enemies made their move. The soldiers steadily advanced, clearing the nearby trees without wasting much energy. However, none of them made any moves to target Zac.

He wasn’t surprised. Their energy wasn’t theirs to use. It belonged to their master. Besides, they clearly didn’t want to stray too far from Valsa. Both sides knew she was the key to the battle. As long as they didn’t spread out, they could collapse on him again. And with the trees being dismantled, it would be harder to force another ambush. Unfortunately for them, [Ancestral Woods] had long since reached Peak-mastery.

The skill had been his next upgrade after [Pillar of Desolation], and he’d tried to accomplish the same thing inside the Orom World. He’d come up woefully short that time, yet he still managed to push a High-quality F-grade skill into a Peak-quality E-grade skill. Now that it also had reached Peak-mastery, it wasn’t so easy to get rid of, and new trees were constantly sprouting. The resilience of the woods had grown far greater. Technically, Zac could keep regrowing the forest as long as at least 20% of the trees remained standing.

The only downside was that each tree cost a little more Cosmic Energy than the one before. The cost would become prohibitive if the warriors were allowed to act as lumberjacks for too long. Even if he had the energy to spare, he couldn’t channel it fast enough to replenish what was lost.

The remaining mages remained like two statues, seemingly content to control what Zac assumed was the barrier. Of course, there was also the possibility of them preparing another nasty surprise like the one in the sky, so they were his main target.

Finally, there was Valsa. She radiated a blinding light like a celestial, and seven rivers of light emerged behind her. They ran through the sky above Zac’s head until they reached the other side of the dome. Zac felt a pang of danger.

They fell like raindrops—thousand upon thousands of daggers of light, stabbing toward the ground. No wonder Valsa waited to attack him until they reached this place. She had a Dao of Conflict to match her Dao of Light. Together, they formed intangible blades with incredible destructive capabilities.

In just a second, she had destroyed more ancestral trees than all her followers combined. Zac wasn’t much better off as a hail of projectiles harried him. No matter where he dodged, they followed. It looked like she could at least partly control the things that fell. Meanwhile, two alabaster wings covered Valsa and her followers, creating a dome within a dome.

Zac felt his domain crumbling and desperately tried to maintain enough trees—just a bit more. The emerald smoke released from his body had already permeated the whole dome, forming a beautiful moss that seemed able to live on just about anything. The ground was covered, as were the trees of [Ancestral Woods]. Even sections of the energy dome made out of pure light gained a greenish tint as moss started growing on it.

Perhaps he shouldn’t consider it odd. Light was a common source of nourishment for Life.

The moss didn’t even need something to attach to. Floating clouds of green drifted about—for a second before getting ripped apart by the dagger rain. Even then, the surviving shreds formed the cores of new clouds and began growing. Everything was consumed, everything became nourishment. The only thing still pure were the rivers in the sky, as the falling daggers shredded any Dao or energy that tried to get close.

In a sense, the true alpha predators of nature weren’t the largest beasts that roamed the lands. The true terrors were the smallest members of flora and fauna. Mossy was a prime example of that, and the unique creature had been part of the inspiration for [Primal Edict].

Of course, creating a draining layer of moss was only the beginning.

Creaking sounds formed an ominous rattle before the world exploded with an exuberant hunger. Innumerable vines grew out from the moss, lashing out at anything that came close. They grew as quickly as Vivi’s vines, covering the whole battleground in an instant. The seven warriors found themselves under assault by a tide of vines, and their progress was greatly hindered.

The vines didn’t look quite like Vivi. For one, they were filled with as much Dao of Conflict as Dao of Life. As such, they weren’t fully smooth. They had three protruding equidistant ridges, each forming a natural edge with powerful cutting capability. They weren’t as strong as the blades of [Nature’s Edge], but the dome was already crawling with them.

The tip of the vines was extremely sharp, and they had three barbs with far greater hardness than the rest of the vines. If they managed to pierce someone, it’d cost a chunk of flesh to rip them loose.

The vines which sprouted close to [Ancestral Woods] wound themselves around the trees, forming secondary armor before they shot toward the sky. Each vine was like the spear of an E-grade warrior, and Zac smiled upon seeing they were individually more powerful than the daggers. Between [Adamance of Eoz] and his high Endurance and Vitality, they were extremely difficult to stop.

The vines shattered the raining daggers one by one until they were ripped apart, at which point they regrew. However, this came at a huge cost of Cosmic Energy and Vigor. The skill was already scaled to the point it could be mistaken for a D-grade skill, as were the seven rivers of light above. Zac wouldn’t stand there and watch. He was normally confident when it came to wars of attrition, but not when faced against an elite with a squad of walking batteries by her side.

Besides, Zac doubted his enemy would be content watching things play out like that. He was proven right as a cascading wave of light ripped through the domain. Unfortunately, the wave didn’t head toward him, but rather the four remaining pillars of [Empyrean Aegis]. Zac sighed as he stepped into a tree, but he didn’t move over to protect the core of his defensive skill.

Instead, he appeared at a tree close to his enemies, where eight slashes of light greeted him. Zac growled as his arm turned to a blur, and Vivi aided as best as she could as he pushed toward the closest soldier. The golden world of [Empyrean Aegis] trembled as he stepped within the winged domain and felt a noticeable weight on his shoulders. The moment his defensive skill failed, it would get far worse.

Still releasing emerald mist, more and more vines grew around him, making him seem like an avatar of nature. The additional vines drastically lessened the pressure from the onslaught of attacks, but Zac saw how the falling daggers were already moving toward his new location. A huge rumble erupted behind, and Zac realized he had lost another two pillars of [Empyrean Aegis] from Valsa’s earlier attack. He didn’t have a lot of time.

Zac had felt just how powerful Valsa was. Truth be told, he had no confidence in dealing with her while she was powered with the array. He could gain another boost if he activated [Arcadian Crusade], but how could an imperial princess not have similar methods? He didn’t want to put her under too much pressure and would instead deal with her companions while barely hanging on. That way, he could burst out with full power and all his cards just as Valsa was at her lowest.

But killing all seven with their leader breathing down his neck was tough. Breaking the cage and moving the battle seemed a good first step. There were no guarantees the seal on his Specialty Core would work within this specific domain, and he’d have more options if he could use the haze to hide and ambush.

Unfortunately, his enemies had already cut him off from his targets. Furthermore, he could tell space was manipulated within the wings. He wasn’t confident [Earthstrider] would take him where he wanted to go. And when would he have time to move toward them, with Valsa swinging her sword right at him?

Verun yowled with pain and anger when the weapons clashed, and Zac once more found himself at the losing end of the collision. A deathsworn took the opportunity to skewer him through his ribs, barely missing and puncturing his lung. He was forced back by an angry swarm of vines, but others replaced him as they nibbed at his heels without giving Zac a chance to finish them off.

The pressure from Valsa herself was also mounting. Zac barely managed to keep up enough pressure to prevent her from activating more skills, and she had more cards up her sleeve. It turned out he wasn’t the only one who used armaments to fight. Furthermore, hers was a much more complicated style than what Zac used. Forty-nine flying swords emerged from the back of Valsa’s Armor, forming a deadly sword array that bore down on him from every direction.

The celestial daggers raining from the sky joined them, but Zac was relieved to find out Valsa wasn’t controlling them any longer. Vivi furiously fought them back, aided by the new roots constantly sprouting around them. One by one, the swords were slapped away, which were unsurprisingly made of top-tier materials. Zac suspected they weren’t Spirit Tools but rather Supreme-quality Pseudo D-grade weapons controlled by an Armament Tool Spirit.

Zac felt himself suffocating under the pressure, but making himself a target had finally borne fruit. A small tree had grown right behind his enemies while they were busy attacking him, meaning it was time. Zac dipped into his Void Energy stores and unleashed a storm of fractal blades, swallowing Valsa and her weapons in a hurricane of violence. At such close proximity, even she had to focus on defense for a second.

Simultaneously, more than fifty vines burst out of the small tree, like deadly parasites emerging from their hosts. Their blade-like tips pierced toward the same target, and there was a palpable hunger for destruction in the air. The magical trunks of [Ancestral Woods] were no longer limited to transporting just Zac. During his epiphany, he’d figured out a way to harmonize his two skills, allowing the vines to do the same.

The synergy benefited both skills greatly. [Ancestral Woods] was no longer just a domain and teleportation devise. Each tree had become a deathtrap that could spring on anyone that got too close. He could just keep growing vines and trees on the other side of the battlefield. Any time a new tree sprouted on the frontlines, his enemies would find themselves overwhelmed by another wave of destruction.

Zac was still beleaguered from every side, but it was time he started turning things around on these imperials.

53

SACRIFICE

Just as the vine swarm was about to reach its target, a shimmer emerged from Zac’s axe. It pounced at the beleaguered warrior with perfect timing, roaring with excitement. The pressure became too much, and the deathsworn wouldn’t survive without using a skill. A twenty-meter scythe formed a band of death around the warrior, destroying vines and Verun alike.

Of course, Verun was an intangible Tool Spirit, and the vines wouldn’t give up now that they were closing in on their target. But they didn’t just keep growing. Instead, dozens of regions in the dome grew dull as moss died and vines withered. They’d been robbed of all their energy and longevity. In return, broken tips exploded with renewed vigor as new vines emerged from within, gleaming with a golden luster. It almost looked like a snake shedding its old skin, except what came out was not the same.

Rebirth through Creation.

Some vines looked illusory, as though they were made of light. Others seemed more metal than vine. A few had odd growths humming with unstable power, while some had grown axe-like protuberances.

Zac vividly remembered his first weeks in the Orom World, where he traveled through a forest filled with the Dao of Nature before passing into one governed by Life. They were nothing alike; one was balanced and harmonious, while the other was a mad scramble for space and power. Seeing that place had really helped him better understand the Dao of Pure Life.

His attack ultimately wasn’t a punishment from nature, neither was his Evolutionary Stance. That wasn’t his path. His was a path of Death and rebirth, constantly remolding yourself into something better, something deadlier. How could his vines be any different? There was even a bit of Creation Energy required to run the skill, which allowed the vines to accept anything and make it their own.

As the Heart of Creation said, Creation was never over. So long as he had Cosmic Energy to spare, the vines would keep coming and only get deadlier. Zac could even sacrifice some of his vines to speed up the process. His control over these empowered vines was pretty bad, but that was fine. If Zac didn’t know how they would attack his enemies, how would they? And if they failed, something better would grow out of the ashes.

The man tried to destroy everything with another large-scale attack, but these weren’t so easily dealt with. He was drowning in waves of unpredictable violence, with a dragon hyena waiting to seal the deal. The other warriors moved to help, but that meant a second tree got a chance to sprout. Another swarm of vines joined the madness.

Zac didn’t bother with them. He used the chaos to get to the two mages, hoping to deal with them first. They still hadn’t moved a step, which on its own was incredibly suspicious. The vines that got too close were destroyed by flashes of light, though, proving they had some sort of protective domain.

An eruption of light almost threw Zac off his feet, and he inwardly swore as he felt a scream of danger. Valsa had shredded his outburst of fractal leaves, and she was coming at him fast. Then, the swarm of swords was upon him, and Zac found his progress halted as new wounds were carved into his body. In fact, he was even pushed back as the sword array forced him to surrender ground to avoid grievous wounds.

Meanwhile, Zac finally sensed a skill activation from the two mages. Were they preparing to flee? If things continued this way, there was no way he’d catch them. He needed to do something about the monster nipping at his heels. Zac had hoped to save this for a bit later, but it looked like he was out of options.

The familiar coffin appeared on his back, the rattling sound of chains joining the creaking of growing vines. A pitch-black swirl appeared above Zac’s head, and a viper-quick pitch-black chain shot out. Simultaneously, a second Dao Mold emerged from his Inexorable Core, and a stream of empowered Dao entered [Love’s Bond].

He had already called upon one of his Tool Spirits, so why not the second? Valsa was right in melee range, swinging that radiant sword to cut apart empowered vines like they were made of paper. But the powerful chain of [Fate’s Obduracy] was unrelenting in a way that eclipsed even [Primal Edict]. As she cut one, two attacked. When she cut those, she found herself attacked by four.

Not attacking wasn’t an option either. The chains were filled with death and corrosion, and even Valsa would be in trouble if she let herself get trapped. Between her forty-nine flying swords and the one in her hand, the initial lone link had turned into hundreds in no time. They were an unrelenting tide that tried to swallow her whole.

Zac used the opening to run toward the mages, but they’d already realized they were in trouble. They weren’t about to sit and wait for death like their two companions. The mages started to grow translucent, and the augmented vision from [Ancestral Woods] showed how orbs of light lit up across the arena.

Teleportation points.

Zac frowned, though he was inwardly delighted. The two mages had similar paths, but their Dao fluctuations were a bit different. It wasn’t hard to tell which of the orbs belonged to which mage. There was no way he’d reach them in time, so Zac hurled [Black Death] at the closest mage. Meanwhile, he sent a series of commands to the seething mass of vines that now covered the dome.

Valsa hadn’t given up on her rivers of light, nor had he on his evolving swarm of vines. They couldn’t. The moment one side gave in, it would be game over. Nothing would be stopping the knives anymore, and Zac would drown under a hail of projectiles. Similarly, the vines had reached a deadly mass, even to Valsa’s deathsworn. The vines would overwhelm her helpers if they no longer needed to counter the blade rivers.

At the command of Zac, some of the vines redirected to stab into the empty spheres of light. Meanwhile, Vivi and Alea slithered through the chaos, positioning themselves near the teleportation points inside the winged domain. The axe ripped forward like a cannon, leaving tears in the air.

The mage turned illusory just as the axe was about to carve a hole through her chest, and he felt a weak fluctuation to his side. Zac wasn’t deterred and lightly slapped the chain as he pursued. The axe turned under the manipulation of the links, making a beeline toward a nearby sphere whose energy was rising.

His armaments and [Primal Edict] followed suit, and one point after another was destroyed. The moment the mage appeared, she was forced to disappear again. Two of the warriors tried to stop Zac as he barreled forward. But without Valsa, how could they bar his path? They narrowly avoided getting eviscerated as Zac followed the scent, and the mage was forced to make two more desperate jumps.

At which point, Zac rushed toward the next mage. He had finally forced the first mage out of the winged domain and into one of the spheres of the jungle. His jungle.

A scream echoed and was followed by a crunch as hundreds of vines from a dozen nearby trees ripped the mage apart when she appeared. The plan worked perfectly. Destroy some of the teleportation points and turn the others into traps. Eventually, she would have no choice but to meet him head-on or walk into a trap.

Three down, one to go.

The second mage hadn’t moved far and was currently hiding behind the twenty-meter ball of chains formed from [Fate’s Obduracy]. Just as Zac began his hunt, he felt a second wave of Kill Energy enter his body. A victorious roar echoed through the cave, and Zac saw Verun holding the head of a warrior with a long scar running down his face.

Its form was already flickering, and Zac could feel deep exhaustion from the spirit. It had hidden behind the vines, waiting for a chance to pounce, but the enemies all had Dao Branches. Their strikes were harmful to the spirit projection, and it dissipated just after finishing its hunt. Truthfully, Zac was surprised it managed to kill one of the warriors at all—his goal had been to wound and stall.

The remaining warriors were in various states of disarray, where half fought the vines while the others moved to protect the final conjurer. None dared get close to Zac with their leader temporarily restrained, but a scream of danger indicated his window of opportunity was fast closing.

A seething ball of thousands of chains strained against their captive. [Fate’s Obduracy] had held Valsa for almost two seconds. It was an incredible accomplishment, proving just how powerful Alea had become. Then again, Alea had always been far stronger as a Tool Spirit than when she was alive. For instance, she’d fared well in the Twilight Ocean while still an F-grade Spirit Tool.

Since then, Alea had eaten a plethora of treasures and evolved a full grade, leaving her right at the threshold of D-grade. However, two seconds was pushing it. Thousands of radiant streaks pierced the gaps between the links, like a sun was being born inside. Zac urgently ran past it, his eyes screaming murder as he stared down his next target. Their eyes met, and primal fear ignited in the mage’s eyes as his body grew intangible.

A scream of danger wasn’t enough of an early warning as the world turned white. Intense pain wracked Zac’s body as invisible blades carved deep cuts into his flesh. A searing Dao tried to consume him from within as he was flung toward the barrier. A fourth pillar crumbled while cracks appeared on the fifth, meaning [Empyrean Aegis] was about to collapse. Thankfully, it had protected him from what would’ve been grievous damage.

And the winged domain would soon exert far greater pressure on him. He could feel a beast within the blinding light shooting toward him—an enraged Valsa. He only had one shot.

The world was still a sea of white, but the combination of [Cosmic Gaze] and [Ancestral Woods] provided him with the outlines of his enemies and vague hints of concentrations of Dao. Valsa had already launched another strike toward him while he was in midair. Zac gritted his teeth as he threw [Black Death].

Not toward Valsa but toward the spot where the mage reappeared.

Valsa didn’t bother with the mage as he was already phasing away again. Instead, she flew toward Zac, who was blinded and with his back against his wall. Zac crashed into the barrier, and Valsa’s follow-up strike ripped apart the final protection of [Empyrean Aegis] before carving a deep wound across his chest. He didn’t care. Zac’s eyes were trained on the mage and his axe.

Just as the mage was about to teleport away, a shadowy figure appeared behind him as though out of nowhere. A projection of Alea. She gently embraced the mage, and he froze in place. Literally. His teleportation was interrupted as his energy stopped moving. Within their embrace, there was nothingness.

No past, no future. Fate was sealed, and the river of time ground to a standstill.

The effect only lasted a fraction of a second. [Black Death] punched through the mage’s head. None of his protective measures had been activated. Alea’s avatar disappeared, looking like she’d shattered like broken glass. The mage crumbled, and a surge of Kill Energy confirmed the death of the final sorcerer. Yet Zac wasn’t happy.

“I’m sorry,” Zac whispered.

‘Don’t be like that,’ Alea admonished, her words growing fainter and fainter. ‘Getting hurt in battle is normal. I love that I can still protect you… But now… you’re on your own…’

Zac sighed as the coffin returned to its necklace form on its own, and [Black Death] changed into a hazed streak that returned to his side. As far as Zac was concerned, [Fate’s Predestination] was a defective skill, even if its effect was incredible. To briefly seal every aspect of a person was Heaven-defying. A skill like that could reverse any battle—it almost went against the Law of Balance.

However, it came at a horrible cost. It harmed Alea’s soul rather than draining her energy. Even worse, the stronger the opponent whose Fate you wanted to seal, the greater the damage. This mage was at his level and would be considered an elite anywhere, but he was by no means a peak talent with superlative protections. Still, it would likely take Alea a couple of years to recover. Use it too many times, and Zac suspected her spirit would crumble altogether.

For weak enemies, there was no need to use it since he could defeat them on his own. For enemies that pushed him to his breaking point, he risked shattering Alea’s soul. Zac hadn’t even been able to activate the skill for a long time, as her soul hadn’t reached the minimum threshold of soul strength. But even after she reached that point, Zac had been unwilling to use the skill.

Now, he didn’t have a lot of options. Zac had nothing else to trap Valsa with, so catching the wizard again would have been incredibly difficult if he’d been allowed to teleport away. Now, it was time to make the most of the opportunity Alea awarded him. The mages were cleared out, and Zac was relieved to see the barrier start to flicker. It didn’t disperse outright, but it didn’t look like it would hold much longer.

The world of white faded, exposing a furious Valsa already upon him.

Zac had less than a third of his Cosmic Energy remaining because of [Ancestral Woods] and [Primal Edict], and he was covered in wounds.

Yet, he welcomed her arrival. With the mages gone, it was time to wrap things up. Valsa was about to deliver a ruthless strike but skidded to a halt when a huge hand appeared out of nowhere. Not above her, but her remaining followers who were still besieged by a swarm of vines. Zac had retained two-thirds of his Void Energy. Of course, this was still a pretty big gamble, as [Arcadia’s Judgement] would eat up a good chunk of that. This was the perfect opportunity.

Valsa was about to flash back and block the strike, but how could Zac let her come and go as she pleased?

“Not so fast,” Zac said with a bloody grin as he swung [Verun’s Bite] with enough force to cleave mountains.

A dense set of fractals had already appeared across his skin, and his body surged with power. The pain from the wounds was washed away, and the invading Dao snuffed out. He’d entered the crusade, and his enemy stood before him. The runes on the handle of [Verun’s Bite] glimmered with sanguine desire, and the air screamed with primal roars of the wild.

“Impudent,” Valsa frowned as the crown on her head released a brutal pressure.

Zac’s bones groaned, but he was filled with unstoppable momentum. Meanwhile, Zac pushed [Conviction of Eoz] to new heights. He had long since realized this was the true power of the Hidden Node—combining it with Berserking Methods. He was already pushing his body beyond its original levels with [Arcadian Crusade], so extracting more force from the Hidden Node came at no cost other than his, admittedly waning, Vigor.

It became a multiplier on any berserking skill, and Zac was almost half as strong as his original form. Valsa was forced back by the strike, pushed farther away from her helpers. She tried to activate a skill, but another swing interrupted her. Zac’s current attributes pushed the boundary of what was possible in the E-grade, and not even Valsa could withstand his onslaught.

Another clash almost wrenched Valsa’s sword out of her hands while her flying swords cracked and were flung into the distance. He was about to level a finishing blow to her head, but a shield of light appeared as the gemstones on her crown lit up. The whole world shook, but not because of Zac’s strike. Not that one, at least.

Judgement had been meted out, and a huge cleft created a line of demarcation that cut through the whole dome. The controller-less barrier could not withstand the force of a crusade-augmented [Arcadia’s Judgement], and it crumbled as six streams of Kill Energy entered Zac’s body. Only two survived the initial blast, but a vine finished one off while the last was done in by the aftershock.

Only one enemy remained. Zac was running low on energy, but that didn’t matter. He thrummed with power, and his opponent was in melee range. It was just a matter of time before he broke through her defenses and finished her off. There was no way her War Regalia could save her now that her batteries were gone.

Yet, Valsa didn’t look alarmed. Rather, she appeared pleased. Zac didn’t stop his barrage, hoping to break through the light barrier. Something proved very wrong upon seeing fourteen motes of light rise from the corpses of the fallen deathsworn.

“What? You thought this was over?” Valsa laughed, and Zac felt a sense of crisis as her aura rapidly rose. “That was the last one, right? Of your skills?”

What was going on? Why did killing her followers make her stronger? Zac’s eyes widened in comprehension. Sacrifice. The War Array had a sacrificial feature, where the death of the deathsworn provided a huge surge in power.

“Pretty ruthless,” Zac swore.

“Your aura is surrounded by a sea of blood, who are you to talk?” Valsa smiled, her eyes almost burning with hunger. “Every path requires sacrifice. For my ascension, no price is too great!”

54

PRESSURE

Zac was already high-strung from being targeted for weeks and forced to fight for his life. But for some reason, he was even more enraged over Valsa’s attempt to equate her callous sacrifice of her followers to the struggles he’d been forced to endure over the past years. It was not only an insult to him, but to his path.

There was no turning back from the grudge that had been formed. This woman thought herself justice, and thus all her actions were just. Someone like this wouldn’t shy away from any method to get what she wanted. She’d definitely target Earth if she managed to figure out his background.

The sudden rise in strength from her sacrificial array was an unwelcome surprise, but that didn’t mean he’d lost. Zac was still filled with unending power and was in good enough condition to bring it all to bear. He’d never been as strong as in this moment, and some spoiled false imperial wouldn’t be the end of his journey.

Zac shot forward, drawing a ruthless arc aimed at cutting off Valsa’s head. Verun was exhausted, but the Tool Spirit roared in encouragement as the edge drew closer. Valsa snorted as she moved her sword to parry, her aura stabilized at a level that was just above Zac’s. Fourteen soul lamps floated behind her, pouring light into the War Regalia.

Weapons clashed, and the haze outside the broken barrier was pushed hundreds of meters away. It sounded like a bomb had gone off, but it was just the opening salvo, followed up by a frenzy of attacks. The fused and refined Dao of his Dao Mold coursed through [Thousand Lights Avatar], illuminating the path of Death and rebirth.

Zac and Vivi worked in perfect harmony, turning into violent blurs that tried everything to break through his enemies’ defense. Valsa fought valiantly, and Zac sneered after a few seconds. As expected, her style was refined, but her strength was hollow. He could tell there wasn’t much life-and-death experience behind her strength.

The difference in their attributes was smaller now that they both used Berserking Methods, and she couldn’t overpower him in raw attributes like before. Without that, she was coming up short when faced with Zac’s experience and skill. Her greedy expression slowly shifted into one of fury and fear as Zac methodically started dismantling her sword array and technique.

She repeatedly tried to activate her skills, to leverage the fact she had far more Cosmic Energy remaining. Zac wouldn’t allow it, even if he had to take a small hit to disrupt her energy circulation. Finally, Zac broke through, and [Verun’s Bite] bit into her side. The scene of blood and viscera raining onto the ground failed to appear. The War Regalia gained a nasty crack, withstanding a full-powered attack.

Of course, the attack wasn’t useless, even if Valsa avoided getting bisected. The princess groaned in pain and was launched farther out from the cage’s edge and the winged domain. He’d already realized her dagger rivers were mobile while the winged domain was not. The farther away from it he fought, the better.

He also hoped that moving away from the corpses would break the connection, but no luck so far. However, one of the fourteen soul lamps had winked out, and another one was already waning. It almost felt like a counter until she ran out of steam, though Zac hoped that wasn’t the case. After all, his [Arcadian Crusade] would expire before the lamps did unless something changed.

The situation had become a race, where one side needed to end things quickly and the other needed to delay. Of course, that was unless Zac managed to change form. Zac briefly activated [Void Zone] as he caught up to his prey, but it didn’t help. The odd seal held fast even after the light dome was gone and he’d left its area. It showed no hint of weakening, and flooding it with his nullification zone did nothing.

Just how advanced was this method? There was no way she could do something like this herself. He once more looked up at the star with suspicion. Was there really an insider working with Valsa? After all, there was no way Engo was the only powerhouse hiding in the Perennial Vastness. And it wouldn’t be surprising if a faction like the ancient imperials had some connections on the inside.

‘Hey, she’s cheating! There’s no way she conjured that star seal!’ Zac swore in his mind. ‘Is your boss just going to look the other way?’

“I don’t… I’ll send a petition,” Null answered, though the guide clearly wasn’t optimistic.

It was annoying, but he couldn’t rely on some ancient entity to come to his aid. The Multiverse had never been fair, and the established factions had always possessed this kind of advantage. Why else would Valsa strut around like she was the arbiter of justice?

Since the Fetters of Desolation was off the table, he would just have to finish the job in his current form. Zac was already upon Valsa thanks to [Earthstrider], and the princess didn’t even get a chance to catch her breath before the storm of evolution tried to engulf her once more.

Their eyes met, and Zac’s disdain was met with towering fury.

“Trash!” Valsa spat as one of the gems on her crown cracked, releasing a blast of light.

Zac’s mind screamed of danger, but he didn’t dare back away. He pushed forward and activated another hurricane of fractal blades with his faltering stores of Void Energy. Hundreds of blades dug into four forms, but only one was left bleeding—the original Valsa. She hadn’t managed to block out the point-blank burst completely.

Unfortunately, the protection of the War Regalia came more from its protective array than the armor itself. A shimmering barrier absorbed most of the damage, letting only a fraction pass through. It wasn’t enough for a lethal blow, but a bloody gash ran down Valsa’s face. Her left eye was completely ruined, while the other radiated a wave of almost unhinged anger.

“Die!” she shrieked, and Zac finally knew why she’d been distracted.

The three forms he’d attacked just now were clones wrought from the light released by the broken gemstone. Each one held an impressive aura, reaching at least 70% of Valsa’s. Zac had no idea if this was a Tool Spirit skill or some other method available to the imperials, but it spelled trouble. He’d already seen how his fractal blades passed right through the clones as they formed without leaving any lasting damage.

Suddenly, four blades were trained at him instead of one, and the sword array tried to find an opening from above. Zac’s pushed his techniques to the limits, his attacks growing increasingly ruthless to counter his opponent’s swordsmanship. But two hands couldn’t fight eight, especially when the clones weren’t fully corporeal.

Using the same trick as on the Hero Souls to stabilize them didn’t work, and Zac was soon covered in wounds. If not for his upgraded constitution, he probably would’ve bled out already. The only good sign was that Valsa had an incredibly ugly expression as she almost maniacally tried to take him down. Conjuring these things probably came at a significant cost.

For the first time since entering the crusade, Zac felt some hesitation. Should he back down? He couldn’t even defend himself against this murderous quartet, let alone go on the offensive. But if he retreated, he’d waste the remaining time on his berserking skill. He still had his weakened phase to worry about, and he risked being left at the mercy of Valsa.

Not to mention [Primal Edict], which he still needed to use to counter the rivers that had followed Valsa as they shifted the battle. He was running low on Cosmic Energy while those soul lamps fed Valsa. He really wanted to blast her with an Annihilation Sphere, but he had no way to restrain her long enough to form one. Should he make one final attempt before risking activating [Flashfire Flourish] to regroup?

The Edict of Candor couldn’t last forever. He was reluctant to leave this looming threat alive, but he didn’t have a lot of options. However, Zac sensed something with his Soul Sense just as he was about to create an opportunity to escape.

“Sorry I’m late!” a familiar voice shouted as Kruta came into view, and Zac almost lost his composure upon seeing the wretched state his companion was in.

His right leg was simply gone beneath his knee. In place of a foot was a crudely attached inscribed bone that clearly was not Kruta’s. Blood flowed from a deep cut on his left thigh, indicating he’d almost lost both legs from a single attack. Kruta’s upper body wasn’t much better off, with wounds covering him from head to toe.

“Wh—” Zac said, but his voice died in his throat as a golden lance pierced through the haze, narrowly missing the barbarian.

Kruta looked like a drowning man seeing a boat upon spotting Zac, and he used a movement skill to appear behind him.

‘I screwed up,’ Kruta groaned in Zac’s mind. ‘Why did the reinforcements I stumbled onto have to be led by a champion? There are even three White Sigils in the mix! We need to run!’

‘Soon,’ Zac answered, his eyes gleaming with determination and madness.

Hadn’t he just found himself at an impasse, unable to advance but unwilling to back down? It’d felt like he was caught in a game of deadly chess, knowing he’d be checkmated in twenty moves no matter what he did. Thank God for Kruta and his wretched luck! He’d arrived just in the nick of time, flipping the whole board over.

One form after another was already emerging from the haze, and even Valsa lost her composure. She tried to run away, but Zac endured a strike that ground against his ribcage, all to force her back toward the incoming puppets.

‘A-Are you crazy!’ Kruta stuttered as he continued to inch away. ‘This is a main army! There are hundreds of normal puppets as well! I barely survived running form. A—wait, what’s going on? Where are the others?’

‘Dead,’ Zac answered as he went on a furious assault while releasing waves of murderous intent in the Golden Champion’s direction. ‘Almost there.’

“You lunatic!” Valsa shrieked as she tried to disentangle herself, but Zac only laughed as blood poured out his mouth.

“Come on, Princess!” Zac goaded. “Where are your elders now? So much for your imperial bloodline.”

The champion had already turned its attention to them. It shot forward, lance creating a trail of spatial tears as it made a beeline for Valsa. The princess gritted her teeth and had her clones target Zac as she prepared to deal with the incoming champion. Just as the Golden Champion was about to reach them, an ancient aura spread through the surroundings. Not Zac’s, but Valsa’s.

A shroud of stars formed out of light appeared, moving to form some sort of sigil. It was similar to the stars in the sky, though at an infinitely smaller scale. Did these imperials have a bloodline related to the stars? Or did it create a galaxy under the laws of Taiji? It didn’t matter. This was his opportunity.

Zac forced his way through the barrier of clones, furiously blocking their strikes as Vivi dealt with the sword array. A flying sword dug into his shoulder, but he ignored the pain as he pushed on. Valsa had clearly expected Zac’s strike, but her eyes widened in shock when the Dao was suddenly removed from her surroundings.

The conjured stars dimmed, and the runes on the War Regalia lost their luster. Even the clones turned sluggish, though they didn’t wink out when exposed to [Void Zone] as Zac had hoped. This was what he’d aimed for since the beginning. He had used [Void Zone] a few times already, but never next to Valsa herself.

The two mages who’d been exposed to the odd domain had immediately died, bringing the secret of the nullification zone to their grave. It was all to catch Valsa unaware, and the appearance of the Golden Champion provided the perfect opportunity. He’d even goaded her into using her bloodline to deal with the puppets.

Zac still didn’t know what was going on with his ancestry. Was Laondio the true Limitless Emperor, or was Karz? Either case, the Void Emperor had to be a heritage that could suppress the bloodline of these false imperials. After all, they were only middling up-and-comers back then, clans that weren’t qualified to participate in the construction of the System.

“No!” Valsa cried but was interrupted by a lance digging into her back.

She had put everything on the line to deal with Zac’s swing aimed at her head, but [Void Zone] had rendered her Bloodline Talent useless. Blood poured out of Valsa’s mouth, and her aura flickered erratically. But she wasn’t dead. Zac tried to finish her off, but he swore as another gemstone on Valsa’s crown cracked.

A barrier appeared, pushing Zac back even with [Void Zone] active. The Golden Champion was also thrown off, and its lance was destroyed. It left a huge bleeding hole in her stomach, which started to close as a third gemstone cracked. Zac inwardly sighed as he saw the four still-intact gems on Valsa’s head.

One had created the three clones that were taking up most of Zac’s attention. A second had created a barrier that could keep even him at bay. The third contained a powerful healing ability. Zac guessed that at least one provided soul protection, and the large gem in the middle reminded him of his [Lucky Beads].

But what about the other two? Another offensive and one for escape?

This was the headache of fighting with these elites. They were like cats with nine lives. He was one of the top five powerhouses of the Perennial Vastness, but he’d failed to kill over a dozen guests over the past year. They all had weird skills and treasures that got them out of death’s grasp. Three had even managed to escape [Pillar of Desolation] somehow.

Zac wracked his brain, trying to figure out a way to seal the deal before Valsa could escape, but a scream of danger told him in no uncertain terms his window of opportunity was fast closing. The White Sigils had caught up with their leader, and Zac found himself sieged by two elite puppets and two light clones.

So it didn’t work. He underestimated these puppets, or perhaps overestimated them. [Void Zone] completely erased his presence, which he’d hoped would make the puppets ignore him. It’d worked against that snake in the bottom of the Twilight Chasm, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on these things. Were they going by vision rather than aura?

Valsa also got her share of suffering from the Golden Champion and the final White Sigil. Both were trying to break through her barrier, but they were temporarily unable to handle it. Meanwhile, Valsa’s wounds rapidly healed, and Cosmic Energy Surged through her body. Zac grimaced, knowing he wouldn’t be able to interrupt her skill this time.

A celestial emperor appeared above Valsa’s protective bubble, its eyes already trained right at Zac. An immense pressure bore down on him, which lead to a series of wounds across his body. Of course, that wasn’t the extent of the emperor’s power, and he trained a sword in his direction. One circle of light after another appeared around the edge, and Zac felt a mounting sense of danger.

He had to waste what little Void Energy he had left to leave this place. But a drastic change occurred just as Zac activated [Void Zone] to stall puppets and clones. A twenty-meter orc appeared out of nowhere, and plumes of bloodlust poured out of his cells. He carried a huge machete in his right hand and swung it at the sword with a roar that shook the whole region.

Machete and sword clashed, and the machete crumbled. It couldn’t withstand the pressure of Valsa’s super-charged blow. It did, however, forcibly push the sword to a side, and sweat poured down Zac’s back as a pillar of Pure Light ripped apart a White Sigil right next to him. He’d barely avoided being turned into toast, though he felt the skin on his left side crackle and tear as it was exposed to the immense energies in the strike.

The pressure from the emperor decreased after the strike, but the orc war chief didn’t give up either. He jumped at the opposing avatar with a mad laugh, radiating immense battle lust. For a moment, Zac was filled with visions of ancient battlefields. Of endless rows of well-decked soldiers encroaching on the lands of the tribes. City-dwellers who had come to the wilderness because of their insatiable greed.

They hadn’t expected the ferocity of the tribes or their willingness to bleed to protect their lands.

The emperor exhausted more energy to destroy the war chief, but a storm of intangible blades ripped him apart the next second. It was the golden puppet who had paused its assault on Valsa to destroy the skill, properly fulfilling its role as backup.

Unfortunately, Kruta’s stance wasn’t enough to turn the tides of war, though it had protected Zac long enough for Valsa’s barrier to collapse under the puppet’s assault. She was once more locked in a deadly melee, unable to send any more skills his way.

“You!” Valsa screamed with anger as she desperately fended off the puppets, glaring daggers at Kruta, who tried to look inconspicuous to the side. “You think I don’t know who you are, Kruta?”

“I—” Kruta hesitated, but their conversation was interrupted by a swarm of Blue Capes who appeared through the haze.

Zac sighed at the incoming squad. Over twenty Blue Caps with their weapons already drawn. He was full of reluctance, but there was nothing he could do.

It was time to leave.

55

PLUNGE

The White Sigils were true killing machines, but even the high-quality versions were ultimately not his match, at least not when empowered by [Arcadian Crusade]. He’d already crippled one of the two through sheer attribute advantage and skill, but dozens of Blue Cloaks were ready to take his place.

Arrows so fast they were invisible forced Zac to constantly bob and weave, and he already had two sticking out of his body. Even [Arcadian Crusade] couldn’t hide the fact he was pushing the boundaries of what his constitution could bear, and he felt himself slowly drowning under the onslaught. The ground shook, and Zac inwardly groaned upon sensing the army rushing closer. Just like Kruta warned, there were hundreds of Red Caps.

Fifteen seconds left on [Arcadian Crusade].

Zac hatefully looked at Valsa. They were only separated by thirty meters—a single leap for an E-grade cultivator—yet there might as well be an unbridgeable chasm between them. He was filled with reluctance, but he released a burst of [Nature’s Edge] to create a small window to flash over to Kruta’s side.

“Let’s go,” Zac whispered, feeling like he’d been fed garbage.

Still, Zac was full of gratitude as he looked at his half-orc companion. He knew it hadn’t been easy for Kruta to go out of his way to antagonize an imperial. It was one thing for Zac, who lived in a remote corner of the universe on a planet protected by the System. Besides, he was already fated to butt heads with people like the imperials over Ultom, but Kruta wasn’t.

Kruta eagerly nodded, and he grabbed Zac’s shoulder while snapping a bone with the other. The surroundings shifted, and Zac swore as he found himself right in front of a Red Cap. Behind it were dozens more, including two Blue Cloaks.

“What!” Kruta exclaimed as he kicked the puppet away from them. “Why from this direction? This region should be safe!”

“To the river!” Zac urged as he ate a handful of Soldier and Satiety Pills for his almost depleted Vigor.

The world shifted again, and they found themselves at the edge of the haze, with an endless river filling up their vision. It was too wide to spot the other side. Zac would even have guessed it an ocean if not for the powerful current that created frothing waves.

“Damn, what a mess. The path we took here is blocked,” Kruta sighed after confirming there were no puppets on their tail. “Is it the Golden Champion? Maybe they can summon puppets from far away.”

“Maybe,” Zac nodded. “For now, let’s—”

Zac said, but a pang of danger made him drag Kruta dozens of meters away with [Earthstrider]. It barely allowed him to avoid a torrent of light that pierced a hole through the Edge. From the haze, Valsa appeared, her armor a mess, but her wounds fully mended. Valsa retained four soul lamps and had lost yet another gem on her crown. Was it to throw off the Golden Champion?

Seeing her appear made Zac’s battle lust surge, but he only had five seconds remaining on [Arcadian Crusade]. Worse, Valsa was still channeling those rivers of light, and they were getting closer. He didn’t have the energy to counter it with [Primal Edict].

There was just no way.

“Do you trust me?” Zac whispered while he took out a Void Core.

“No!” Kruta groaned.

“Well, too bad!” Zac said as he grabbed Kruta and jumped. “Hold onto me and I’ll get us through this!”

“No! We’ll—” Kruta screamed, but his words were swallowed as they plunged into the frothing waters of the liquid mercury making up the river.

It was so full of energy it veritably vibrated. Zac groaned as thousands of invisible blades dug into his back. It felt like burning maggots were trying to burrow into the wounds, and the agony was enough to drive one mad. Then, the pain disappeared as Zac activated [Void Zone]. The waters around them stilled, but his Void Energy was getting drained at a worrying pace.

Zac sighed before cramming the Void Core into his mouth, chewing at the rocklike resource to shave off energy-rich filaments to swallow. A storm of unstable energy soon coursed through his body, turning his insides into yet another battlefield. Most of it was unusable before [Void Heart]’s purification, but some could be extracted and used for himself.

It wasn’t enough to recover his stores, but it slowed the loss considerably. A weak warning of danger made Zac look up just in time to see the surface getting pelted by thousands of projectiles. Unfortunately for Valsa, the daggers were almost instantly ripped apart by the dense energies in the river. The few that barely reached Zac were nullified and erased. The powerful current had soon dragged Zac hundreds of meters, and no more attacks came from Valsa’s side.

Zac prayed it was because the Golden Champion had tracked her down.

Kruta didn’t dare so much as blink out of fear he’d break whatever Zac was doing, so Zac had Vivi fasten the orc to his back while he scanned the river’s edge with his Soul Sense. It only took a few seconds before spotting what he was looking for—a small outlet that veered right. Zac urged his harried body to drag them into the channel, after which he let the current do its thing.

Their journey met an abrupt end ten seconds later as they slammed into a stone wall. That was their cue, and Zac carefully dragged himself and Kruta to the surface. They were in luck. He had expected the channel to lead them to the moat he’d spotted outside Saeward’s Castle, but they’d been ferried into the castle proper. By the looks of it, they’d been deposited at the bottom of a well.

“What? Wh—” Kruta blubbered as he looked around with wide eyes. “What?”

“Want me to slap you to wake you up?” Zac offered as he glanced at well’s mouth. “Well, shit.”

Zac couldn’t see what was happening within the castle, but the open well provided a perfect vantage of the night sky.

The huge Edict of Candor was still floating in the air. Just how long would that thing last? Would he have to leave the Stand of Saeward to free himself of its effect? He tried breaking the seal again but was rebuffed like his previous attempts. Not a great situation when you’d accidentally infiltrated a haunted castle full of Hero Souls.

Zac was absolutely wrung dry, and his ultimate skills would be on cooldown for a few more hours. He hadn’t noticed, but even his pathways had been damaged. Part of it was probably courtesy of the river and eating a Void Core, while the rest was because of the Dao infused into Valsa’s attacks.

Even worse, he never got a surge of Kill Energy after they jumped into the river. Her lanterns should have run out already, yet Valsa survived. That had to mean the large puppet army hadn’t managed to catch up to her. Was she returning to the teleportation array, or was she still lurking in the region?

Perhaps she even had a backup squad ready to go.

For now, he could only deal with things as they came. Zac indicated Kruta to be silent before having Vivi inch her way to the mouth. There was no response after a minute, so Zac had the Spirit Plant slowly drag himself and Kruta upward. They couldn’t stay much longer this close to the lethal waters. He was plumb out of Void Energy, and even hovering above the calm waters of the well felt like a steel bath.

He tried to sense any activity through his various senses, but he could find nothing except an incredibly energy-rich environment. Kruta shook his head slightly, confirming he couldn’t sense anything either. Peering over the edge, they discovered the well was situated in a remote corner of a flourishing garden.

There was a garden in the middle of an ancient battlefield?

It clearly wasn’t some wild plants having found a footing thanks to the energy-rich environment. The flowers and shrubbery, all of which emitted strong auras of Conflict, appeared to be carefully planted to create a good ambiance. The scenery made Zac’s depleted cells loudly complain with hunger, but he stilled himself as he searched for threats.

As far as he could tell, there were none. There were no puppets, Hero Souls, or any other people for that matter. Neither could they spot any suspicious energy patterns indicating a hidden array. The only arrays they could find were a set of arrays that covered the flowerbeds, which helped gather energy and infuse it into the plants.

Zac shrugged at Kruta’s inquiring look, and they crawled out of the well and moved into a hidden corner where they erected a set of arrays. Only after ten minutes did they breathe out in relief and move about. It really looked like they’d managed to break into the castle unseen. Had all the Hero Souls inside already been forced onto the battlefield? It was impossible to tell. The garden had to be covered in an isolation array since they couldn’t hear a peep.

With no outside threats around, Zac turned his sight inward. [Purity of the Void] and [Void Heart] were already fast at work expelling the foreign Daos of Valsa and the puppets. [Immutability of Eoz] was still trying to expel the shield, but Zac managed to redirect its attention after a few tries. Thankfully, it looked like no curses or marks were left on him during the battle.

His body was still teeming with the Kill Energy from the deathsworn, and he activated [Surging Vitality] while cramming food, real food, down his gullet. Satiety Pills were a lot like Soldier Pills. Those pills only provided a hollow energy boost and couldn’t be compared to normal recovery and a good meal.

“You’re pretty relaxed after almost getting yourself killed,” Kruta commented, but he still followed suit as he took out a large box filled with grilled meat.

“I’m pretty used to it,” Zac sighed before looking at Kruta’s stump. “Your leg…”

“Ah?” Kruta said, glancing down. “Oh, don’t worry about it. This bone’s a specialty of my tribe’s shamans. It’ll help me grow a new foot in a week. In a month, it’ll be back to my old strength.”

“Impressive,” Zac said.

“Can’t have our warriors get crippled after every little dismemberment,” Kruta laughed, but his grin slowly turned into a grimace, and he stood, bowing deeply. “I’m sorry! I talked so big about helping fight off your enemies, but I ran at the first sight of trouble! I failed you!”

“You didn’t fail me,” Zac assured as he tore into another strip of dried Beast King. “You brought the puppets and protected me at a critical moment. That’s more than I could ever ask for. I didn’t expect my enemies to have such a troublesome background.”

“But you almost did them all in yourself. If I helped from the beginning, you wouldn’t be as cut up as a practice dummy,” Kruta said with a shamefaced expression. “It’s just… That was Valsa Planur from the first of the Seven Heavens. Our people’s tribes rely on the Fourth Heaven. I froze.”

“Fourth Heaven? What’s that?” Zac asked curiously.

Zac had already heard some mentions of the Seven Heavens of the Ancient Imperials, but he’d never gotten the details. Few were willing to gossip about the top factions, and none would be so bold as to sell information packets on peak factions in Vastness City.

“What? You don’t know about the imperials?” Kruta said. “Then why was she so mad at you?”

“It’s complicated,” Zac shrugged. “I’ve told you before; I’m from the frontier.”

“Right,” Kruta slowly nodded. “Do you know about the imperials?”

“Well, the short of it. Pretty powerful people. But I’m not sure why you’d be reliant on them? Is your tribe a subsidiary force?”

“No, not really. Each Imperial Clan formed a powerful Empire, and we live closest to the Luaris Empire. We are not a subsidiary to them, but we still can’t defy them because they control the Fourth Heaven.”

“And what’s a Heaven?”

“It’s a special universe,” Kruta sighed. “You could consider it something beyond the classifications of Mystic Realms. They are frankly amazing. You can ‘ascend’ from almost anywhere if you have access, even outside the Luaris Empire. You’ll pop up out of nowhere inside the Heaven. Higher-grade permits can even allow you to send in just your consciousness or part of it.

“Imagine the ramifications. People across dozens of regions able to suddenly appear right next to each other after paying the entrance fee. Thanks to the Heavens, they’ve become extremely important for trade, alliances… And breakthroughs.”

“Breakthroughs?” Zac said with raised brows.

“The Dao is clearer in the Heavens, denser. It almost feels like you’ve been transported to the beginning of the era when the Dao was wild and abundant. Thanks to that, it’s one of the best places to defend your Dao, and the imperials are selling slots in return for contribution,” Kruta grimaced. “But if we go against them…”

“You’ll lose the opportunity to nurture Autarchs,” Zac sighed. “I get it.”

“That’s an important reason why the imperials are standing strong to this day. Their networks are so vast because of the opportunities they can provide. And, of course, they have an excessive number of Autarchs and Monarchs among their ranks.

“They don’t even need to lift a finger. They can just remove your access to the Heavens, and you’ll slowly see your faction die out while your enemies get your opportunities. People have tried to figure out what the Heavens are or if there’s more of them, but none have solved the mystery.”

“Even a rich environment can’t have endless energy, right?” Zac frowned, remembering how even Draugr Clans had to carefully plan who to give a shot at Autarchy and when. The costs involved were simply so huge. “How can they afford to let outsiders defend their Dao in their backyard?”

“That’s…” Kruta said, looking at Zac askance. “They borrow it from other places…”

Zac’s eyes widened in comprehension. He’d heard of this before. Ancient factions draining the frontier to improve their environments. These imperials were real thieves, one and all.

“Well, that’s how things stand,” Kruta shrugged. “Now, can you explain where we are and why we’re alive?”

“The first question is simple,” Zac said. “We’re inside Saeward’s Castle.”

“WH—” Kruta roared, but he button up and lowered his voice to a whisper. “What?”

“I noticed that the castle’s moat was made up of the weird liquid of the Edge, and the river was running in this direction. I figured they were connected,” Zac explained. “So, I jumped in, and here we are.”

“That’s… That’s… so stupid,” Kruta said, his eyes as wide as saucers. “What if only a small offshoot led to the moat while the rest led us to some deadly region beyond what we’re supposed to explore? What if the path here was protected by a grate?”

“I mean, staying behind would have been a death sentence, so I figured we’d take a chance.” Zac smiled. “And now, we get to look for treasure.”

“Madness… Madness,” Kruta said as he blankly looked to the sky. “Making enemies of the First Heaven and still finding time to sneak into the heart of the zone. I’m not sure I can bear your fate.”

“Now, don’t be like that. Though I guess I should tell you, now that things have come to this, I’m technically an enemy with all the Heavens, not just the first,” Zac coughed, which made Kruta’s face crumble.

“Fine, whatever!” Kruta grunted as he ripped into his dinner. “The rice is already cooked, and that little witch will do whatever her kin will do. I guess I’ll just have to follow you to the end of this fever dream. I can’t die more than once.”

“That’s the spirit,” Zac said.

“By the way, I marked her with some bone dust when I brought the puppets. She won’t be able to ambush us again when we return.” Kruta grinned. “Well, unless she cleans her shoes, I guess.”

“That’s good,” Zac nodded.

“Anyway, you want to explain why we’re alive or why I felt my connection to the Dao suddenly getting cut off?” Kruta commented with a raised brow.

“That one’s a bit more complicated,” Zac said. “I’d appreciate it if you forgot about it, honestly.”

“Forget I asked,” Kruta said. “You know what? If I get out of this alive, I’m heading right into seclusion. I’ve had enough excitement and war for a while. I miss my tribe. I miss the song of the grass.”

“We’ll see,” Zac laughed. “I think you’ll come back for more adventures soon enough.”

Kruta just snorted and continued to eat. Both spent the next three hours doing field repairs on their bodies and recovering energy. It wasn’t nearly enough time to return to peak fighting condition, but it was enough to deal with some Hero Souls if they ran into them. Hopefully, enough to leave this place in one piece. They planned on staying another hour, but Kruta’s eyes suddenly snapped open as he turned toward the castle wall.

“I can sense her! She’s coming!” Kruta said with shock. “How is she moving through the army?”

Zac was just as surprised at Kruta. Valsa obviously knew they were alive from the lack of Kill Energy, but she actually dared to follow them into the castle? That was almost as surprising as her being able to do it. He’d seen that battlefield himself. Unless something had drastically changed, there was no way to pass through that chaos unscathed.

Then again, did the why and how matter? She wasn’t the only one unwilling to let bygones be bygones, and Zac refused to believe she’d recovered to a perfect state after that battle. Plans were already brewing in Zac’s mind as he got to his feet, and Kruta blanched when their eyes met.

“You’re not…”

“Of course I am. Let’s get ready to welcome her.”

56

DISAPPEARING ACT

Valsa ground her teeth as she slowly inched backward. Another attempt foiled by the shift in the battlefield. Two Blue Cloaks struck at her, but she deftly blocked them while infusing a command into the Master Medallion. Ten Hero Souls rushed over, heedlessly attacking the surrounding puppets to give Valsa a chance to disentangle herself.

It wouldn’t have been hard to destroy those two pieces of junk, and she was more than willing to after the previous encounter. But she couldn’t. If she made any big moves, her plan would fail. She didn’t dare activate any skills or even rotate her energy, what with the dozen Golden Champions hovering above.

The surroundings soon stabilized, and the usually mindless Hero Souls formed a small island halfway through the battlefield. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough nearby captains to call over, so she could only wait. These miscreations were just too stupid. They would long since have routed the puppets had they retained some of their brains after their deaths.

The protective circle wasn’t absolute. One errant attack after another crashed into her armor, eliciting another wave of fury as she was forced to mutely take it. She’d known someone picked by Ultom would be a tough opponent, but she still couldn’t believe things had gone so awry. They’d planned and surveyed for over a year, yet it all collapsed within minutes.

And that barbarian. She wouldn’t have been in this mess if he hadn’t meddled in her business and brought that golden puppet. She prayed she’d retain enough memories to track him and his faction down. She intoned the names and backgrounds of the two responsible parties every time a mark was left on her armor. Perhaps the royal uncles could fish the words out of her consciousness upon her return.

Anything to strike at those bastards.

Valsa grimaced as the dense waves of energy coursed through her body—leakage from the damaged Core Nucleus. The [Planur Core] by her spine picked it up and converted it to enough raw power to destroy mountains, but she could only release it while stuck in the middle of the battlefield. The boost eclipsed even that of her War Array, but at what cost? Years of preparations were being undone in front of her eyes.

The Golden Champion must have intentionally chosen to target her that way. A strike meant to cripple, to create desperation and struggle. To set a deadline before your cultivation collapsed. Only then would the most Impetus be extracted to fuel the undertaking. Valsa only had six hours before the nucleus would break altogether. Her remedies hadn’t been enough to deal with such damage.

Saeward, ruthless indeed.

Furthermore, four of her Natal Fategems were sacrificed for some short-term gains. It would take a Fourth-Step Autarch to remold them and relink them to her cosmic pulse. Who among her ancestral uncles and aunts would bother if she returned in her current state? Defeated, humiliated, and crippled, shaming the First Heaven and their name. Valsa felt like the floor had been ripped out from under her feet.

Thank the Gods that bastard was still alive.

Valsa stroked the Spatial Ring on her finger, where the [Transplanted Fate Array] waited. It solidly entered the unorthodox, but so what? Her ancestral father had already shielded the Heavens; it would block out the backlash. And it wasn’t like her family hadn’t done the same before.

Initially, the thought of stealing someone’s foundations to power her path felt disgusting—it would sully her pristine heritage. But she was left with no choice. The Core Nucleus would already have collapsed by the time she reached the exit of this experiment realm. It would take at least three years to regain her current accumulations, considering she’d used up most of her contribution for this plan.

By then, it would be too late. The struggle for the Left Imperial Palace would be over, and she would have lost the window of opportunity to catch up. Even if the First Heaven somehow managed to get a foot through the door, it wouldn’t be her who’d lead the way. She’d be sent off to become a cauldron for another family’s heir or even gifted to an ally. All while her old competitors laughed at her fate.

But now, she felt empowered, and she could see the silver lining to her failure. That man’s bloodline was simply too overbearing, forcing the stars of Planur into submission. It had completely upended her plan, but it was only a delay of the inevitable. She’d seen his state, and knew what it meant to enter the River of Steel. The bloodline might have allowed him to enter Saeward’s altar somehow, but he should be at death’s door. Exhausted, wounded, and still sealed by the stars.

If she succeeded, she’d accomplish all her goals in one fell swoop. Use his foundations to repair and elevate her Core Nucleus. Seize his Fate and gain a ticket to the Left Imperial Palace. And if she managed to transplant that man’s Bloodline Talent into her own? Between being a Flamebearer and that, she was sure to become the Holy Daughter of the First Heaven.

The battlefield shifted again, and Valsa’s eyes lit up. She ordered a charge, and a riding captain came to their aid. Another fifty meters progressed while her private army had grown even greater. Not much longer now.

Knowing Valsa was making her way over left both Zac and Kruta restless. Neither were in any mood to continue recovering.

“Can you tell when she’ll get here?”

“It’s not that precise,” Kruta said with a shake of his head. “I didn’t dare leave any obvious mark. I can only sense she’s entered my range. I’m not exactly sure where we are in the castle, but that should mean she’s entered the large-scale battlefield. I should sense it better if she gets within a few hundred meters.”

Zac nodded as he surveyed the garden. The dust wasn’t perfect, but it was much better than no warning.

“What do you think? That one?” Zac said, pointing to a smaller door that seemed to be leading toward the innards of the castle.

“Looks like a servant’s passage,” Kruta said. “That big gate feels like trouble.”

“Agreed,” Zac said and the two set out, working hard to harmonize with the surroundings.

Zac only stopped when they reached a flowerbed filled with D-grade flowers infused with Pure Conflict. They were quite good specimens…

“Don’t even think about it,” Kruta growled from behind, clearly understanding what Zac was thinking.

“Maybe on the way back,” Zac sheepishly smiled.

The barbarian was right. The arrays under the flowerbeds looked benign, and Zac couldn’t tell if the plants were monitored. Their best guess since finding themselves in the garden was that a particularly powerful Hero Soul maintained this place. Perhaps Saeward himself or his right-hand man. Such a powerful memory fragment might contain enough memories and personality to maintain their hobbies.

It would be a disaster if they accidentally called them over because of some decent Natural Treasures.

Creeping over to the side entrance, it thankfully opened without blaring any alarms or triggering traps. As expected, they found themselves in a servant’s passage. Investigating the nearby rooms didn’t attract any Hero Souls. The castle felt very incongruent that way. It was flooded with so much Dao and Energy that even Zac had some trouble coping, yet no Hero Soul formed within the walls.

The wing consisted of simple sleeping quarters, a large kitchen, an indoor greenhouse, and two offices. There were some ledgers in the larger office, but Zac frowned as he picked one up. It was filled to the brim with notes, but Zac couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Either it was written in code, or someone had just written random words for thousands and thousands of pages.

Had the office owner become a Hero Soul and continued writing reports without understanding what he was doing?

“Look at this,” Kruta said.

The tome Kruta held looked much older and wasn’t filled with random gibberish like the others. Instead, it contained detailed reports of operation. Most of it wasn’t useful, such as detailing the expenditure to procure foodstuffs, cleaning schedules, and notes on the garden and greenhouse.

“This Saeward lived pretty good for someone staying in a battlefield fortress,” Kruta commented as he flipped through the pages.

“Looks that way,” Zac said. “Doesn’t really mesh with someone having a desperate final stand.”

“All kinds of weirdoes out there,” Kruta shrugged. “There’s a war chief of a rival tribe back home who always brings his wives to fight alongside him, even those multiple grades lower than him. He’s already held over a thousand marriages to replace those he lost. We’ve accepted hundreds of beautiful refugees—young flowers afraid they’ll get selected next.”

“Pretty messed up, but it doesn’t look like you’re complaining,” Zac said, noticing the grin tugging at Kruta’s lips. “Did some of those beauties find the great Kruta a better match?”

“Who wouldn’t!” Kruta laughed. “I already have six fiancés, though they have to become Late Hegemons before marrying me, and I a Monarch.”

Zac smiled as he kept turning pages of the tally when he found something odd.

“Hey, so how’s things going with that black-eyed lass of yours?” Kruta grinned. “Not my style, but I can see the—what?”

“Look at this,” Zac said, and Kruta leaned over. “It mentions Saeward’s disappearance. Not even the staff knows what happened. ‘Master has disappeared at stretches before, but never at a time like this. I fear…’”

“Last entry two weeks later,” Kruta muttered. “The steward tried using his procurement channel to source medicines and supplies. They must have succumbed soon after?”

“Or perhaps abandoned this fortress,” Zac offered. “This castle doesn’t look like it’s withstood a siege.”

“It’s odd,” Kruta agreed. “Hey, look at this.”

Zac looked at a procurement tally from one week before Saeward’s disappearance. At a cursory glance, it didn’t feel special—just six lines with simple annotations of quality. But looking closer, it was very different from the previous entries, both the products and the quantities.

“What the hell,” Zac muttered. “What’s this? Do you recognize any of these materials?”

“Two,” Kruta said. “Tasstir Lichen. We call it Ancestral Moss, and our shamans use it for spirit journeys. The other is the Damchi Glass. It’s a type of glass made from Damchi Sand… Odd.”

“What?” Zac asked.

“Damchi Glass has many uses, but seeing the Ancestral Moss… The glass can be used to create various soul-stabilizing items. Such as a Soul Mirror.”

“A what?” Zac asked.

“Possessing a body is full of risks. One of them is remnant soul rejection. Shards of the previous owner’s soul can be trapped in the body, and it’ll make the body reject its new owner. A Soul Mirror can help fuse the two and minimize the side effects.”

“You said your shamans use that moss to take a spirit walk. Do you think it can be used to drive a soul, or pieces of one, out of the body?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Kruta nodded.

“Someone possessed Saeward and had his people procure the materials to stabilize the takeover. When he’d stabilized, he left, leaving Saeward’s army to fend for itself?” Zac muttered. “Ruthless…”

“Let’s hope that’s not the case,” Kruta sighed.

“Why?”

“Because then ‘Saeward’ is long gone, and there’s no trove to retrieve.”

“Oh,” Zac grimaced.

“It wouldn’t explain why the energy is rising, though. It also wouldn’t explain the war outside,” Kruta offered. “Let’s keep investigating. That lass is still some ways off.”

“Sure,” Zac agreed. “But let’s look for good spots for an ambush.”

Kruta nodded, and they left the servant’s quarters. The rest of the castle was quite sparse. There were just endless corridors and stairs, with walls covered in lines and patterns. It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on.

“This is an array,” Zac said.

“Sure,” Kruta agreed. “Battlefield fortresses usually are. Communication, protection, offensive. They can have all sorts of functions. From what I gathered, Saeward controlled a War Array to empower his soldiers from here.”

“Hmm,” Zac hummed as he looked around.

“What?” Kruta asked.

“Don’t these patterns feel odd to you?” Zac said.

“No. Then again, I have no talent for stuff like this,” Kruta shrugged. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know yet…” Zac muttered. “Let’s keep going.”

After skulking through the castle for another ten minutes, they’d almost made a full circle around the whole thing. Still, not a Hero Soul in sight. Or a treasury, for that matter. The castle was essentially mirrored, with two gardens and quarters to the sides. However, while one wing was meant for the servants, stewards, and chefs, the other was reserved for officers.

They found a set of reports in those rooms, but they didn’t add much they didn’t already know. The generals were shocked at their commander’s disappearance and the loss of the War Array’s boost. They desperately tried to keep morale up and turn the tides, but the reports grew increasingly bleak.

‘The soldiers are tired, exhausted. Our blood has turned the earth red. Yet they stand. Yet they fight. Honorable men and women, not breaking under the impossible pressure. A general couldn’t ask for better fighters. Better brothers and sisters.

‘WHERE IS HE?’

It was the final notation in the report, written two days before the steward’s last entry. The papers bled fury and despair, and it permeated the whole room. They soon left, afraid the intense resentment would conjure the fallen general. Someone like that would have to be the equivalent of a Golden Champion. Definitely not something they wanted to deal with when an unhinged princess was on her way.

The rest of the outer section was essentially bare. They’d tried to locate Saeward’s living quarters or cultivation chambers, but they’d come up with nothing. As far as they could tell, the castle was a four-storied circular complex almost entirely comprised of these array corridors.

A third area held a courtyard leading into a main hallway. Thick array lines covered the tiled pathway, leading from the castle’s sealed-off innards to the courtyard and beyond. They hadn’t dared enter that particular hallway. For one, it contained dense enough energies that the floor was mostly covered by a haze that felt even scarier than the metallic water.

Secondly, they’d finally spotted some Hero Souls. The courtyard outside seemed to be a spawning point, and an almost constant stream of warriors were conjured there. They only waited until a full company had been formed, after which they set out through the outer gates. Endlessly.

It was possibly a good location to ambush Valsa, but he and Kruta had misgivings. Valsa still hadn’t reached them, but she seemed to be somewhere in the middle of the battlefield. As far as they could figure, that only had two explanations. Either she was invisible or had something which allowed her to control the Hero Souls.

The puppets clearly didn’t care about Valsa’s pedigree, but the stronger Hero Souls could be reasoned with or tricked. If she could utilize the soldiers on the squads, their previous tactic of using the Stand of Saeward’s locals to their advantage might backfire. They slunk back, returning the way they came.

They’d expected to find Saeward’s quarters in the final quadrant, opposite the entrance. Unfortunately, all they found were more corridors. Though it wasn’t hard to tell there were rooms they couldn’t access. After going up and down the confusing maze of paths for a few minutes, they vaguely mapped out a hidden section that was even bigger than the servant’s quarters.

Breaking in proved futile. The castle was made of incredibly tough stones and then further augmented by eons of channeling huge amounts of Dao and Energy. They barely managed to leave a scar on the walls. They might be able to open a path if they went all-out and used skills, but they feared creating a ruckus like that would backfire spectacularly.

The only other thing that set the fourth section apart was a large gate that should lead to the inner section. Perhaps a back door for the servants. Neither the officer’s lounge nor the servant’s quarters had something like this. Having explored the rest of the castle, they stopped before the entrance.

Zac had almost mapped out the whole array in his mind, and he’d dealt with enough patterns based on Conflict to find a few clues. One thing was for sure, things weren’t as they seemed. Something odd was mixed in, and the engravings didn’t match the usages Kruta described.

First of all, the patterns felt more like a gathering array than something for defenses or a War Array. It would explain the cloud above the castle’s center and the extremely dense Dao that permeated the walls. But that also wasn’t quite right. It felt more like an exchange. Much of the energy gathered by the castle went into forming new Hero Souls. But something was also taken back from the memories.

Zac frowned, slowly starting to form a hypothesis. However, there was no way for them to confirm while skirting the edges of the castle. If they wanted answers, they’d have to enter the heart. That’s where they felt the energy churn, and that’s where the Stand of Saeward’s upheavals originated.

“You ready?” Zac said, and Kruta tersely nodded.

They carefully pushed open the gates, immensely thankful it didn’t creak. However, both froze when faced with the scene inside the large hall on the other side.

A puppet?

57

PUPPET

It turned out that the central section of the warfront castle was a large atrium with a diameter of over three hundred meters. The whole square was covered in dense scripts, and intense fluctuations of Conflict were released from the glowing lines. At first, Zac thought the whole array was illuminated and running, until he noticed that wasn’t the case.

There was a small section, no larger than a bedroom, which remained inactive. It was dim, though Zac could feel how powerful pulses of energy continuously pushed against the edges, leaving small motes of energy behind. It shouldn’t be more than an hour before the array was filled in.

There were also at least one hundred rune-covered pillars the height of a man with floating orbs hovering above. They were clearly man-made, a mix between orange glass and purple steel. Inside, Zac could vaguely see small fires burning. Looking at the setup, the pillars were no doubt the inner array flags to the formation that spanned the whole castle.

And in the heart of the array was a large dais, reminiscent of the altar Zac had seen in the Twilight Chasm. Atop it sat a five-meter puppet.

It looked like the thing was meditating. The complex array provided dense streams of Cosmic Energy and Dao, and a terrifying cloud of resentment swirled around it. Even Zac wouldn’t dare enter that cloud out of fear of losing his mind, yet the puppet somehow appeared tranquil. Untouched.

The puppet was completely different than the ones fighting outside. First of all, it was far larger than any of its brethren. Even the Golden Champions were no more than half a meter taller than Zac, but this one would tower over him even when he used [Arbiter of the Abyss].

Its quality was also on a completely different level. The puppet was made from the same purple metal as the floating orbs, and it was so vividly detailed that it looked more like a statue than a puppet. Its back faced them, but Zac could confirm it had human features. It even had a set of hair made of black wires, neatly held in a bun. Clothes fashioned from alloy were draped across its body, with both ‘skin’ and garments covered in runes that made Zac’s mind tremble.

It didn’t emit a speck of energy, yet Zac’s mind warned of certain death if they attracted the ire of this goliath.

Kruta nudged him, and they slowly inched back from the doorway, careful not to make a peep. They closed the door, yet they didn’t feel safe even after moving to another section of the castle. It felt like they were trapped in a cell with a monster.

“What’s going on?” Kruta whispered. “I don’t know much, but I know that wasn’t a War Array. It gave me an extremely creepy feeling. And that puppet…”

“That orange glass, was that Damchi Glass? And the fires inside…” Zac asked.

“Aye, that was Damchi Glass and the flames of Ancestral Moss,” Kruta confirmed, his eyes thinning. “You’ve been studying these patterns since we entered the castle. You know what’s going on.”

“I can’t be certain, but I think that was Saeward,” Zac sighed.

“The puppet?”

Zac nodded. “The materials were meant to deal with possession, but not in the way we guessed. I think Saeward was trying to transfer his soul and Inner World into the puppet. Perhaps he still is.”

“What?” Kruta said, his eyes widening in realization. “Then the puppets outside…”

“I don’t think there were two sides to this ‘last stand.’ I think it was all Saeward.”

“Why would Saeward send puppets to slaughter his own—” Kruta said, but he quickly caught on. “Conflict breeds Conflict.”

“Exactly. This whole castle is gathering… I don’t know exactly what, but something like the essence of war. There are hints of the Dao of Impetus hidden within as well. I think he used the resentment and desperation of his men to elevate his Dao and fuel a breakthrough.”

“Sacrificial cultivation,” Kruta spat. “So he’s probably the one who arranged the Hero Souls to reappear after the war was lost. What a bastard! Using the deaths of his subordinates over and over to further himself.”

Zac sighed as he glanced in the direction the puppet resided. Yet another reminder of the length some people went to in the pursuit of power. Be it Valsa or this Saeward. They didn’t even consider their subordinates as faceless cogs of their faction. They were reduced to cultivation resources, probably to pass some bottleneck that had kept Saeward trapped for a while.

The revelation brought back memories of The Great Redeemer, a threat that loomed over him to this day. There was still no news of Voridis A’Heliophos’ capture or death, even with the Allbright Empire and the Kavriel Province looking for him high and low. Zac didn’t even know if his mad plan to enter Monarchy had succeeded. He’d simply disappeared from the face of the earth after the events in the Mystic Realm.

“He probably got stuck one way or another,” Zac grunted. “Perhaps his original body had limited potential, and the solution he came up with was to transfer his cultivation into a Supreme-quality puppet. I have no idea how this is related to the array or the sacrifices, though.”

“If what you said is true, then Saeward has succumbed to the unorthodox path. Even transferring your true self into a puppet is skirting Heaven’s Path.”

Zac nodded in agreement.

“What a mess,” Kruta grimaced. “There’s no way a bastard like this would leave an inheritance for future generations. And a natural trove formed from the Inner World of such a twisted mind? Way too dangerous.”

Zac was of the same mind but a tempting thought unfurled. “The puppet!”

“What?”

“Saeward had to be a Monarch. So the puppet should be made from extremely valuable materials.”

“You want to dismantle that guy!” Kruta shivered. “We don’t even know if his spirit lingers inside.”

“Do we even have a choice?” Zac countered. “The energies are rising, and did you see the array within the room? Only a small corner isn’t lit up yet. I think all hell will break loose when the array has finished accumulating, and we’re trapped within this building. What are we supposed to do? Hide within the well?”

Kruta looked conflicted, his eyes turning to his left arm where his guide bangle was. “That little jerk on my arm only tells me to do my best. I guess this is still considered part of the Red Zone. There should be a way to deal with this mess. The Ruthless Heavens wouldn’t permit a situation of certain death in its trials.”

Zac nodded, and they quickly brainstormed a plan. They were running out of time, no matter if it was the array or Valsa’s imminent arrival. Furthermore, Zac suspected the war outside would end when Saeward awoke or collapsed. Both puppets and Hero Souls had accumulated large amounts of resentment and Dao of Conflict. If he were Saeward, he would have prepared a method to collect all that energy at a critical time.

If Valsa didn’t have a way to enter before, she would have at that time.

The two came to a decision. They ran through the corridors, leaving explosive arrays at certain junctures. Zac didn’t expect the array lines to blow up altogether, considering how sturdy the rocks were. It was more about disrupting the energy flow.

Soon they reached the main hallway, where the intense storm of Conflict raged.

“See that spot where six lines intersect?” Zac whispered.

“Got it,” Kruta said, two swords appearing in his hands.

Zac entered the grand hallway, pushing against the wall as he made his way closer to the closed atrium gates. He felt a raking pain as the clouds brushed against his legs, but he silently endured. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be long.

Right before the door was a second intersection of array lines, controlling a second set of runes. The array was way too complicated, and time was much too short for Zac to figure out a surefire array-breaking method. They were only left with the plan to hit the pressure points fast and hard and pray that something broke.

A fractal blade appeared before [Verun’s Bite], and he looked over at the barbarian. Kruta was ready, his two swords humming with destruction, so Zac began a countdown with his fingers.

Three, two, one.

The fractal leaf released two gusts of Life and Death as it crashed toward the intersection. Simultaneously, Zac infused his will into a small Array Disk, and the whole castle shuddered as over twenty explosions rocked its very foundations. The light radiating from the array lines flickered, and Zac could tell the array had grown unstable.

It worked.

The delimitation between the Abyss and Arcadia dug into the ground, carving a scar over two meters deep. It was even better than he’d hoped. The attack had utterly destroyed the runic lines he’d targeted plus a few more. A grin spread across lips, but it turned crocked as a storm of wild energies empowered by Conflict flooded out of the gash.

Zac was thrown into the wall, and new lacerations joined the angry marks from his barely healed wounds. It was a small price to pay to accomplish his goal. Kruta had also been successful, and a large cross had been carved into the ground. The first step was complete.

But the main array inside was still intact, and Zac could feel how Dao and Energy were still dragged over in huge quantities. If anything, the energies inside the atrium were rapidly rising. If they wanted to really throw a wrench into Saeward’s plans, they needed to do the same inside.

The wild fluctuations within the atrium made the closed gates creak, and Zac pushed himself to his feet. A scream of danger made him throw out a set of defensive talismans, but their hastily erected barriers all crumbled by a pulse released from within. Before Zac could even take one step toward the atrium, he was thrown out of the castle.

Zac felt like his bones had been rearranged as he slammed into the courtyard stones, and a vitriolic curse confirmed Kruta had been deposited not far away. A second warning of danger made Zac jump back to his feet, barely in time to avoid a spectral arrow aimed at his head. There were dozens of Hero Souls in the courtyard, and there was no hesitation as the unwitting cultivation cauldrons rushed toward them.

The ancestral avatar had already appeared behind Kruta’s back, and Zac released a stream of fractal leaves, each digging into the incoming soldiers. He almost lost his composure as he felt an incomprehensibly large surge of energy outside the outer walls. Resentment and pent-up Conflict rose like a tide, creating a wave hundreds of meters high. It almost blocked out the sky, and Zac’s hair stood on end as he felt the pull from behind.

He’d been right. Saeward was calling his soldiers home. If this immense wave of energy was allowed to reach the puppet…

Zac glanced at the castle, hesitant about what to do. The Hero Souls were almost upon them, and new ones kept spawning.

“I’ll deal with this! Go!” Kruta urged as he took a defensive position in front of the entrance.

Zac nodded and activated [Earthstrider] to flash back toward the atrium. Kruta didn’t have the ability to detect weak spots in the huge tapestry of the central array. Meanwhile, Zac would hopefully be able to figure something out, as he had with so many blueprints.

Another surge was followed by a pang of danger, but Zac was prepared this time. He rushed toward a pillar, putting it behind his back while Vivi wound herself around it. The pulse pushed through the corridor the next moment. Zac groaned as rampant Conflict dug into his body, but he didn’t get thrown out of the castle this time.

Once the pulse had passed, Zac used the relative calm in its wake to kick open the door. The cyclone of resentment that greeted him almost drove him mad, but the opening step of the [Void Varja Sublimation] allowed Zac to center his mind long enough to activate [Void Zone]. But ultimately, the Bloodline Talent was just an E-grade skill, and the storm easily eclipsed what it could nullify.

One good piece of news was that the puppet remained unmoving atop the dais, and Zac still couldn’t feel any energy within. It had either not yet awakened, or it was unable to move in the middle of the ritual. That meant the plan was still on, and Zac wildly looked across the atrium. Their previous actions had clearly agitated the central array. And while it still ran, the energy wasn’t flowing nearly as smoothly.

The situation was surprisingly reminiscent of the simulation array back in his manor. The array blueprint on the floor was being tested by an outside pressure, which exposed some things you’d normally not notice. Zac’s eyes soon stopped at a certain spot, and a small fractal leaf formed on his axe.

It wasn’t much larger than Verun’s axehead, but it was immensely condensed and filled with the Evolutionary Dao of his Dao Mold. Zac released the blade, and it tore through the air like a bullet. The raging resentment tried to corrupt the blade, but it was like a blazing beacon in the darkness. Tearing through the chaos and carving a line into the imperfection. Damaging one section exposed new weaknesses, and Zac’s arm was like a cannon as he shot out one fractal leaf after another.

Zac had soon damaged over a dozen loopholes and destroyed four array pillars, but he was increasingly filled with misgivings. Why didn’t it work? The energy was still building, and the blank spot was being filled in with speed visible to the naked eye. His eyes turned to the puppet, or rather the elevated stage it sat upon.

It had to be the dais. It somehow maintained operations like a backup generator. The first streams of the energy tsunami outside had already started to pour into it, and Zac was no longer sure it would help even if he ripped apart the whole array. Were they too late? Had the inner array already been completed to such an extent it could perform whatever it needed to do?

Zac wracked his brain for solutions. The dais felt like an impregnable fortress. Its energy emanations were as stable as a mountain; there were no weaknesses. Not to mention the terrifying puppet that sat atop it like a silent guardian. What if it woke up when someone invaded its personal space?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Zac gritted his teeth and shot forward. If there were no weaknesses, he’d just have to create one.

[Verun’s Bite] was deposited into Zac’s Spatial Ring as two energy streams entered his shoulders. Meanwhile, small motes of unfettered potential were extracted from Zac’s cells, joining the two streams that continued from his shoulders into his arms. A glistening light of possibilities appeared between his hands. Destroying the array hadn’t worked as he’d hoped, so Zac switched up his tactics.

If he couldn’t stop the process, he’d corrupt it.

The [Origin Mark] greedily swallowed the immense energies in the surroundings, quickly growing to the size of a cantaloupe. Zac felt himself rapidly losing control, but that was fine. With a few steps, he appeared in front of the dais, the opalescent blob between his hands having paved a path through the storm. There was no time to look for an optimal spot, so Zac urgently pushed the [Origin Mark] into a random rune.

And he was immediately filled with a sense of doom as the sky darkened. Zac’s heart hammered as he glanced up, horrified to see a huge metallic face expressionlessly gaze down upon him. Zac tried to flash away with [Earthstrider], but it was like time had stopped. The puppet didn’t seem to move quickly, but Zac had no time to react before it pointed at him.

A scream of mortal peril forced Zac’s body to move on its own, and he furiously leaned to the side. Blinding agony followed, and Zac howled with pain as his left arm and shoulder were shredded.

The puppet had just lightly tapped the air, but the force was enough to launch Zac like a cannon. He slammed into the atrium walls and his vision closed in. Then, there was just darkness.

An itching fire forced the darkness away, and Zac’s eyes shot wide open. Zac’s mind was mush, and he looked around with confusion. Kruta was there. The barbarian held a small vial containing some extremely pungent liquid under his nose, which had probably forced him awake.

“Wh—” Zac groaned.

“The spirits outside disintegrated and were dragged here,” Kruta whispered, but he didn’t look the least bit relieved. “Did it work?”

Zac blearily turned toward the dais while trying to sense the mark he’d left.

“I don’t—” Zac stammered but was interrupted by the whole platform exploding. “Uh…”

Kruta and Zac blankly looked on as the puppet collapsed. Meanwhile, energy flooded out of the ground and shot toward the sky as though a pressure valve had broken. Zac could barely believe it worked, but joy turned to horror as the puppet slowly stood up despite the array’s apparent collapse.

“Run!” Zac screamed, but it was too late.

Not because Saeward’s coming alive, but because a new player had entered the fray. The sky rumbled, and the world practically ground to a halt. An ancient and boundless wrath suppressed the air of resentment and bloodlust. The Dao shied away, leaving an exposed puppet staring at the sky.

The Heavens had descended, and it was out for blood.

58

IMPERFECTIONS AND TRIBULATIONS

The sky roiled, and the world was filled with an intense purple light that almost veered into a bloody red. The Tribulation Lightning was reflected in the puppet’s eyes, and Zac sensed something stirring awake inside.

The intensity of the tribulation was far beyond what Zac had felt during his own, and his hair stood on end upon sensing the boundless energy inside arcs of lightning that gathered above his head. Even an errant streak would maim and possibly kill him, and he was way too close to the puppet for comfort.

Luckily, the puppet, or Saeward, was too busy preparing for his tribulation to bother with the two intruders at the atrium’s edge. It was calling all the Red Zone’s energy home, and the cyclone of resentment formed a dense barrier around it. A barrier full of imperfections.

Zac finally understood what their previous sabotage had accomplished. There were over a dozen small holes in the barrier, matching the number and locations Zac had attacked before. Furthermore, there was a larger gap in the shield, likely because the tribulation was summoned before the array could finish forming.

A barrier was only as strong as its weakest spots. Even if the loopholes were filled in by the nigh endless amounts of energy in the atrium, so what? Those sections would still crumble under the Tribulation Lightning. Zac guessed he’d accidentally made Saeward’s breakthrough far more dangerous. What if he found out?

Zac tried to move, but the pressure was overwhelming. [Void Zone] was no good either. The nullification zone was ripped apart, and some of that boundless wrath targeted him momentarily before returning to the puppet. Zac felt like he’d just had a brush with death. Did the Heavens take offense to him trying to rid a region of all Dao?

“What do we do?” Zac said through grit teeth, arduously turning to Kruta, who also found himself stuck against the wall.

The barbarian didn’t look too worried, which alleviated some of Zac’s own misgivings.

“It’s wrong,” Kruta said with a hoarse voice. “The tribulation is far from what it should be.”

Zac understood what the Kruta meant. The crackling lightning was terrifying, but he was just an E-grade cultivator. He’d seen a few examples of a Monarch’s might, and this light was far from reaching that level. Was the Perennial Vastness blocking out the ancient Heavens? Or had it somehow modified the tribulation to create a scenario more suited for guests?

“We should be fine as long as we don’t do anything stupid,” Kruta added, giving Zac a pointed look. “Don’t try to mess with the tribulation. The tribulation will only target the puppet. Saeward isn’t defending his Dao, so it should be a Two-cycle tribulation that targets his Inner World. The fallout shouldn’t affect us. However, if we interfere, we’ll be dragged into the tribulation.”

“What if the puppet targets us?” Zac countered. “It blasted off my arm with a simple gesture.”

“Well…” Kruta coughed before smiling helplessly. “Everyone’s journey has to end one way or another.”

“That’s just—” Zac said, but his words were interrupted by a deafening rumble as the world turned purple.

A scream of danger warned him, in no uncertain terms, that they weren’t quite as safe as Kruta indicated, and he urgently activated [Empyrean Aegis]. A golden shimmer enclosed him and Kruta, and Zac was relieved to sense that the five pillars had been conjured outside the atrium. Kruta added another layer of defense by summoning a bone bulwark, and it rose before them just in time to block out a tremendous shockwave chock-full of Conflict and Resentment.

The bone wall was shredded, having absorbed most of the initial blast. Zac and Kruta only suffered some lacerations from the condensed Dao, but Zac barely noticed it as he looked at the scene ahead. A solid pillar of lightning seemed frozen in the air, cutting his vision in two. It contained boundless energy and that ancient, punishing will.

The lightning pillar didn’t quite reach all the way to the ground. Rather, it stopped just above Saeward’s head, where a steely portal swirled. Looking at it filled Zac with immense pressure, as though the overflowing energy in the atrium was just a small candle to the raging sun hiding within.

“That gate leads to Saeward’s Inner World,” Kruta whispered. “The aura is wrong, just like the tribulation, but he should already have entered the Middle-stage going by the clues.”

“Then why the tribulation?” Zac whispered.

“Probably because of how he tries to break through. He’s not doing so well. He didn’t actually manage to prevent the first bolt from breaking in. Is he so confident in the stability of his foundations that he wants to refine his world?”

Zac wasn’t so sure. He’d heard a few things of tribulations among Monarchs. It wasn’t much different from previous ones, except that it was the Inner World that was mainly targeted. Like with other tribulations, one could hide from or defy the Heavens. By fully taking on the Tribulation Lightning, you could temper and expand your Inner World. Of course, that was incredibly dangerous.

Only the most daring and powerful scions would do something like that. Saeward, who chose such a cruel and desperate method to progress, was unlikely to have great foundations. Zac’s gaze shifted between the destroyed barrier and the broken shards of the crumbled dais, his eyes filled with suspicion.

The Tribulation Lightning had descended the second the dais crumbled. He’d already guessed he ruined Saeward’s outer defense against the Tribulation Lightning. Had he also destroyed Saeward’s method to delay and weaken his punishment? It was no wonder he was in a bad way.

The first bolt dissipated, yet it remained burned into Zac’s vision. Smoke rose from the puppet, and the engraved garments were covered in tatters. Whatever was going on inside Saeward’s Inner World had to be even crazier. Zac could tell the lightning within was weakening, and the barrier quickly reformed.

But the Heavens had already regrouped.

A second blast followed the first, this one carrying even greater force. A loud crash erupted next to Zac, and he shuddered upon seeing a piece of rubble from the dais had just barely missed him. Kruta was right; the lightning didn’t reach them. Of course, the force involved in the strikes was problem enough. Looking at Saeward, Zac guessed they wouldn’t have to endure much longer.

The protective garment had been reduced to ash, and crackling fissures covered the puppet beneath. One of its arms was gone, and the spirituality it contained seemed to be on the verge of collapse. It had been pushed to the ground by the second blast, looking ready to throw in the towel. Yet it got back onto its feet, preparing to meet the next tribulation. It didn’t have to wait long.

The world shook as a bolt twice the size of the previous ones swallowed Saeward whole. Zac couldn’t see anything but felt a powerful impression of unwillingness from within. Saeward wasn’t able to hold on, but he was also unable to let go. Of course, the Heavens didn’t care about the will and opinions of cultivators, and a deep rumble reached the depths of Zac’s soul. The light faded soon after, displaying a fully scorched puppet lying prone on the ground.

The black hair was gone, and the purple alloy was now a mottled black that still released smoke. There was not a speck of spirituality left within the puppet or even the ground around it—almost like the Heavens had created a persistent [Void Zone]. Only a few lingering arcs of lightning remained, and the clouds started to disperse.

Zac sighed as he looked at the desolate scene. He felt no pity for Saeward. If anything, he was happy he’d played an important role in his fall. But his demise was a stark reminder of the stakes involved when defying the Heavens. That was doubly true for someone like him, who’d have to withstand Tribulation Lightning every step of the way.

“Whew,” Kruta exhaled as he ate a Healing Pill. “Three out of six. Thank the ancestors he didn’t manage to enter the second cycle. Those blasts would have been tough to deal with.”

“Uh huh,” Zac hummed as he looked at the fading arcs of lightning.

“What are you looking at?” Kruta asked.

Zac shot forward, stopping within a few meters of the fallen puppet. There were no signs of life even at this distance, yet Zac didn’t dare stay long. He grabbed a couple of arcs with his remaining arm and flashed back. The Tribulation Lightning didn’t seem to mind—it was happy to continue its mission of extinction. Unfortunately, it had encountered its match in [Void Heart].

Had it been the main lightning bolts, Zac wouldn’t have dared. But some lingering sparks now that the Heavens had left? He’d have to be crazy not to let his Hidden Node swallow some of that.

“You’re stealing Tribulation Lightning?” Kruta said with wide eyes.

“They’re pretty good for tempering yourself,” Zac explained.

Kruta was about to answer, but his and Zac’s eyes suddenly shot toward the hallway.

“She’s here.”

“Damn, she tricked me,” Kruta swore. “She erased the tracking mark at the last second.”

Zac’s heart thumped, and he urged the Creation Energy in his body to conjure another arm. It cost a chunk of lifespan, but he couldn’t hold back at this junction. What was with her aura? If there was one thing Zac was confident in, then it was his recovery ability. Yet Valsa somehow seemed stronger than when they fought.

Truthfully, Zac expected that Valsa’s source of confidence had come from being able to control Hero Souls. It would have explained why she could pass through the battlefield, and why she dared attack without her underlings. Except Kruta had a trick that would have immobilized the Hero Souls for a second—enough to turn the tables on Valsa and end things in one go.

Zac was even more confident after seeing Saeward extract all that energy from the battlefield. With Valsa’s War Array gone and Kruta fighting for real, they’d just might be able to finish the job.

As it turned out, they’d made a massive miscalculation. Valsa’s confidence didn’t come from outside aid but from her own power.

The princess stormed the castle with the force and momentum of a Primordial Beast. It’d be lucky enough if they withstood her opening salvo. Had she cracked another one of the gemstones on her crown? Or had she activated another berserking treasure? If so, she was really risking everything. Even Zac had a hard time using two such items in a row, and his constitution was beyond sturdy.

There was no time, so Zac gritted his teeth and activated his available skills: [Ancestral Woods] and [Primal Edict]. Unfortunately, both [Arcadian Crusade] and [Arcadia’s Judgement] were still on cooldown. They were in trouble. He hadn’t expected to be caught in a tribulation and wasn’t ready to meet her head-on.

“Can you buy me a few seconds?” Zac asked.

Kruta had a serious expression as he nodded and rushed to the hallway’s entrance. The gate had already been blasted off its hinges, and the array on the ground had grown dim. Valsa had just passed through the outer gates, and her aura was a beacon to Zac’s senses. Thankfully, she was alone, but there were no Hero Souls to impede her path.

Kruta wasted no time as he stabbed his two swords into the ground. The castle shook as a storm of blades emerged from the rocks, turning the long hallway into a deadly gauntlet—a veritable maw of a Primordial Beast, filled with rows and rows of teeth. Together, they formed a powerful domain. Even Zac would have to be careful to enter that place.

A few ancestral trees prevented Valsa from simply jumping through, and the sword array was joined by the ferocious vines of [Primal Edict]. Few guests could get through the hallway in one piece, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep Valsa at bay. He only needed a little bit of time.

Zac threw out an isolation and illusion array by the exit before enacting part two of his plan. Streaks of nothingness began pouring out from his Dao Spirals; the purified Oblivion Energy extracted from the Remnant prison. Even then, Zac didn’t feel too confident. He’d planned on using his final ace to deal with Valsa since the beginning, but he hadn’t expected such a stark difference in power.

He would have to play it by ear.

Zac didn’t even get the chance to begin before a blast of light poured out of the gateway. It was like a solid block of destruction that carved a straight line through the atrium, even engulfing the puppet before it was finally stopped at the opposite wall hundreds of meters away. The overbearing power in the pillar almost destabilized Zac’s skills. He barely managed to retain their effect.

A deep roar erupted from within the beam, and a bloodied Kruta crawled out under the protection of his ancestor. He only managed to give Zac an apologetic look before falling unconscious in a pool of his own blood. His idea was a wash. Zac hadn’t even managed to begin conjuring an [Annihilation Sphere], and he could already hear Valsa’s running steps in the hallway.

Out of options, Zac took out a large seed and crammed it in his mouth. It was a [Rageroot Oak Seed] that he’d harvested shortly before leaving for the Perennial Vastness. The Rageroot Oak had, like most local overlords on Earth, already entered the D-grade. It hadn’t been quite ready to bear new seeds just yet, but an array had allowed him to extract a half-ready seed—a powerful Pseudo D-grade berserking treasure.

Unfortunately, it was not nearly as good as [Arcadian Crusade], and the effect was limited since his body was so overdrawn already. It would have to do.

Zac was filled with delirious urges for blood and glory, but his Void Heart allowed him to stay clear-headed. However, a sudden spark of inspiration was born from reaching the heights of hubris, and he was unable to let it go.

The primordial roars of [Verun’s Bite] were replaced by the abyssal rattle of [Black Death]. A fractal leaf appeared in front of the axe blade, and Zac swung it toward Valsa in an overhead attack the moment she appeared around the corner.

Valsa sneered, and her armor blazed with imperial might as her sword rose to meet the attack. Simultaneously, her free hand pointed toward Zac’s chest, and Zac could tell she was channeling enough energy to blow a hole through the sky. Zac didn’t care, and his eyes gleamed with madness as he redirected the Streams of Dao and Oblivion energy into his Dao Mold.

All or nothing.

The winds of victory pushed her forward as she ran through the ruined hallway, and Valsa could almost feel how her river of Fate grew wider as the gate drew closer. Her gambit was successful, and it was time to collect. She pushed more energy into [Lance of Judgement] as she glanced at the energy signature to the left of the entrance, careful not to overdo it. The [Transplanted Fate Array] would work on a corpse, but the effect would be limited.

Crippled but alive was the way to go.

No one could say she didn’t give him a chance. This bastard could have tried to escape upon sensing her approach. There was no way the Undead Empire hadn’t provided him with some form of escape measure. Those things carried risks, but it would have been better than staying in this cage and waiting for death. If he’d succeeded, then Valsa would have truly lost.

Perhaps she would have been able to find something inside the castle that could mend her Core Nucleus, but that was a long shot. Saeward’s futile attempt at reincarnation was highly unlikely to have used resources that’d mesh with her path. There was also no way she’d be able to steal the foundation of a Monarch, even if it only remained as a discarnate soul.

Valsa knew Arcaz Umbri’Zi had likely reached the same conclusion as she. He’d felt she would be helpless without the War Array—that he and his wretched companion could overturn the Heavens. But he failed to realize the critical difference between them. She had spent years investigating and preparing. Six potential battlegrounds had been arranged, and every possible variable analyzed.

She had admittedly underestimated her opponent’s strength to some degree, and the powerful domain skill was a surprise. To her benefit, she knew the cooldown of his berserking skill down to the minutes, and their previous battle had already filled in the missing links in her understanding. He should have understood she wouldn’t have forced her way through the puppet army unless she was confident in victory.

She could clearly see it through that low-tier array. His recovery was almost miraculous, but it wasn’t enough. Whatever berserking treasure he’d swallowed only provided half the strength compared to his skill, while she was more powerful than ever.

It was game over. Valsa rounded the corner, her sword rising to block the ambush while she made sure her War Regalia was primed to block out his leaf explosions. The fractal leaf descended, and it couldn’t even shake the might of her crumbling Core Nucleus.

His Bloodline Talent wouldn’t be able to change anything. Its ability to quench Dao and suppress energy was shocking, but it was still within the bounds of the Law of Balance. It hadn’t been able to disintegrate her Fateward Clones, and it wouldn’t be able to fully suppress the amount of energy she currently carried.

Valsa effortlessly eviscerated the overhead strike, but the slippery bastard narrowly avoided the lance. She’d still managed to carve a large gash in his side, and his aura fluctuated precariously. Yet he came back for more with madness burning in his eyes.

It was odd. Why was he so confident that he dared fight her in a melee? He wasn’t a fool. Was it because of some misguided attempt to protect his companion, or did he actually think he could defeat her? Valsa was aware she lacked in true life-and-death experience compared to her enemy, but she wouldn’t allow the billowing waves of murderous aura to plant a seed of doubt in her heart.

Another clash resulted in another grievous wound, but the annoying chains of his weapon prevented her from landing a crippling blow. Blood poured out of a new gash on his throat, but there was no pause as he moved for a third attack, this one too aimed at Valsa’s head in a seeming attempt at mutual destruction.

Then, she realized the problem. It had barely been visible before, but something was off with the small golden cracks on his face. She’d assumed it was the result of being trapped within Saeward’s tribulation or a side effect of his berserking treasure. But there was a weak hint of an unfamiliar energy that reeked of danger. And why was he using that axe?

Something was wrong.

Only with her enemy dead could she be sure there weren’t any more unwelcome surprises. However, lack of information had almost cost her life before. She needed to disengage. She needed to—

Thoughts and plans withered and died as the fractal leaf collapsed unto itself. Replacing it was a blade of utter nothingness, of extermination. Mortal peril screamed at her to run, to dodge. To do anything that would take her away from that executioner’s edge. Yet it felt like time had ground to a halt as it drew closer.

A primordial sense of preservation cracked the Fategem of Peril, and a flood of relief filled Valsa as she felt herself be summoned away. But relief turned to horror as the light was extinguished, her very being erased. She only needed to endure a little more, just a little…

Then there was only darkness.

59

FALLOUT

Zac panted as he looked down at Valsa’s corpse, or rather the gathering of light that had started to dissipate. His hands were shaking with strain as he forcibly quelled the errant tendrils of Oblivion in his body, his pathways frayed and teetering on the brink of collapse. Yet, he was thrilled. To the point he didn’t care about the possible ramifications of killing a princess from the old Imperial Clans.

It actually worked. Zac remembered the first time he envisioned what he’d just pulled off, way back when he was still experimenting with the ‘brown flashes.’ To channel the taboo powers of the Remnants into his skills, turning them into delivery systems of that ancient madness and destruction.

His [Origin Mark] and [Annihilation Sphere] were ultimately the crudest form of energy control. They were just raw blobs of unstable energy that he had to push into his enemy at melee range. They took time to charge, and it was getting harder and harder to land a blow. The Dao Mold had proven to be the key.

Instead of channeling his Dao and the Oblivion Energy into his shoulders, he’d crammed it into his Inexorable Mold. Through its complex pathways, Oblivion and Conflict fused into something that had been just stable enough to briefly infuse into [Nature’s Edge]. The result was shocking, far beyond the level of what an E-grade cultivator should be able to wield.

The blade of Annihilation had destroyed all the defenses the princess put up. Her Supreme-quality sword was cut apart, barriers broke the moment they touched. Her, admittedly damaged, War Regalia proved utterly incapable of stopping the descent. Zac had even seen the blank look in her eyes, confirming the skill had managed to erase her thoughts mid-fight.

That alone was a terrifying ability that could turn the tides of almost any battle. You couldn’t afford any distractions when you walked the tightrope of a life-and-death battle. She’d managed to rally and crack a fifth jewel on her crown, but her response had been delayed. The gemstone had transformed her into a streak of light to drag her away, but the edge of Annihilation had carved a hole of nothingness right through her.

It’d been enough to finish the fight—the enormous surge of Kill Energy and influx of Mana proof of that. She should be truly dead unless the Supremacies of the Planur Dynasty chose to drag her soul back from the cycle of reincarnation. If that were even possible, considering where she died.

Zac had long since learned of the possibility of reverting time and dragging cultivators back from beyond the grave. It was a common reason for cultivators to push toward the peak. However, it went against the natural order, and even Supremacies would have to pay the price. Furthermore, there were many limitations. Where and how the cultivator died played an important role. Using Oblivion to kill Valsa would probably make it harder. That it happened deep inside the Perennial Vastness was likely to complicate things further.

The battle lasted less than a second, but it came at an even steeper cost than their previous fight. The effects of the [Rageroot Oak Seed] had been mostly erased by channeling Oblivion, but that wasn’t the real problem. Zac sighed as he looked at the cracks that covered his Dao Mold. It would likely take over a year to repair the damage. It simply wasn’t sturdy enough to withstand Oblivion Energy.

He never intended to channel Oblivion through his two Dao Molds. At least not until a theoretical future where he’d naturally evolved his Daos from Pure Life and Death to Creation and Oblivion. He considered manually adding new Mental Energy pathways to the two energy highways formed from the remnants of [Cyclic Strike], using the Dao Molds as inspiration. Installing something like that would hopefully allow him to fully control at least the refined Creation and Oblivion Energy.

That was a project he hadn’t even begun, though. And this preliminary test indicated that pathways created with his Mental Energy still weren’t sturdy enough to channel the Remnants without damage.

The good news was that the Dao Mold hadn’t completely crumbled. It was even possible to implement something that could withstand the Remnants sooner rather than later. Perhaps he could find some treasures or tools that reinforced the molds, allowing them to hold on a few seconds longer. And even if not, he at least had a new ace in case his life was on the line. Damaging his molds was far preferable to being cut down.

Zac’s heart thumped at the possibilities laid out from the experiment, but he forced himself to focus. His new set of wounds weren’t a big deal, but Kruta still hadn’t woken up and was still bleeding all over. They were also still in the middle of a Red Zone, and Zac had no idea what would happen now that Saeward’s ascension had failed. He wouldn’t be surprised if there were dozens of people rushing toward their location now that the puppets and Hero Souls were gone.

Those considerations were suddenly drowned out by a startling realization—the looming sense of danger still hadn’t disappeared. If anything, the feeling rapidly worsened, as though Damocles’ Sword was finally descending. A rumble in the sky made Zac’s heart drop, and Valsa’s treasures flew into his hands as he rushed toward Kruta.

Zac glanced at the sky and couldn’t help but swear. The stars were moving again, but it didn’t take a genius to know that wasn’t a good thing. They were no longer spelling out the Edict of Candor. Instead, the stars had formed an enormous face. It stared down at the Stand of Saeward. Neither Zac nor the realm could withstand the attention.

The situation was rapidly going out of control—Zac felt like the laws of the universe were unraveling. The world shook, and Zac’s mind blanked out from his danger sense overloading his mental faculties. It wasn’t telling him to run or hide. It essentially told him it was over and tried to desensitize his frayed mind from his impending doom.

The pressure mounted, and Zac could not so much as blink as the castle disintegrated. Then the ground beneath his feet. Zac trembled as a whole world winked out of existence. This wasn’t Annihilation or Oblivion. It felt like a rejection. The face in the sky didn’t condone the world, so the world simply wouldn’t be.

He and Kruta were only alive because of a translucent barrier that sprung up around them. Soon, there was just nothingness. It couldn’t even be considered the Void, more like Zac had been pushed out of the bounds of reality. His mind had ground to a crawl, unable to conjure any escape paths. He just blankly observed the end of his path as the translucent barrier started to fray.

Was this how Valsa felt as she gazed upon the falling edge of Annihilation?

A sigh rippled through the boundless nothingness, and time moved in reverse. The disintegrated lands reformed, and the castle rose to enclose him. Even Saeward’s puppet and array were restored to a pristine state, as though he’d never endured the Heavenly Tribulation just moments ago.

The only proof the events of the past minutes were real was that he still held onto Valsa’s broken crown and Spatial Rings. The Kill Energy also remained in his body, though it was suppressed just as he was. There was also the enormous face in the sky, whose brows had scrunched together in a frown.

A world-ending force blotted out the Heavens, and Zac felt nothing. In fact, the pressure on him had completely disappeared, thanks to the shield enclosing him growing much sturdier. Zac had an inkling of what was going on, and it was soon confirmed as a powerful voice cut through the rumbling sky.

“I looked the other way when you sanctioned a mark to be summoned inside my domain. But this cannot stand.”

The voice was calm, like the mounting pressure, and its aura of rejection couldn’t even be considered a minor inconvenience. More surprisingly, it came from just next to him. Zac looked over and found a man standing just a few meters away. There had been no hint of his appearance. He just was.

The man didn’t look much older than Zac, but there was a palpable sense of antiquity to him—one that even surpassed the feeling of his bloodline. There was an unmatched transcendence to his bearing and aura, as though he’d fully severed any connection to the emotions and desires of mortals. He was beyond the vicissitudes of time, radiating unquenchable stability. Of all the people Zac had ever encountered, none so perfectly encapsulated the air of an immortal cultivator.

His appearance was more elven than human, though his skin veered toward a pale blue. He was decked in a simple white robe with wide sleeves, its lack of details and runes made it seem even more exquisite. His eyes looked like a vast starry sky, and Zac couldn’t look at them for long without feeling his soul being sucked in.

Zac turned his gaze toward a set of antlers on his head, but the thrums of power they released almost broke his mind. He barely managed to observe that one of the antlers had nine tines while the other had eight before he was forced to avert his gaze. Each had naturally formed patterns that struck at the heart of the Dao. It was like the man wore a crown of the Heavens themselves.

It was too much. The Daos sealing the Dimensional Seed in the heart of the Research Base had been bad, but this was infinitely more overbearing. The screams of danger were overwhelmed by the crashing waves of Dao. Looking away or holding onto his Void Self wasn’t enough. His path was being overwhelmed and eroded by a far greater truth.

But just like the erased world reformed, so did Zac’s mind. Suddenly, the man next to him didn’t seem so bad. He didn’t emit a speck of Dao or aura, almost like the overwhelming sensations just now had been an illusion. But was it? Zac’s heart shuddered, and his mind spun. Had he just died and been reformed? Zac had no way to tell, and there was no time to come to terms with the situation as the face in the sky spoke.

The elven man’s voice had been calm and steady, but the constellation’s voice was like stars colliding and worlds being ground to dust. They were a force of nature rather than speech that somehow formed words. Zac could tell the world would have collapsed again if not for the newcomer’s protection. Worse, what the face said was even more terrifying than how it said it.

“Someone killed my daughter.”

Zac had been working under the assumption that someone like Lord Engo had been helping the Planur Dynasty accomplish its goals inside the Perennial Vastness. But the conversation indicated that to be wrong, or at least not the whole truth. The face, just like the Edict, belonged to an outsider rather than a disciple of the Perennial Vastness.

There was no way some Autarch would be able to, or even dare, force his way into the Perennial Vastness. He was dealing with a Supremacy from the First Heaven.

“So they did,” the man next to Zac said without so much as a ripple on his face when the heavenly pressure mounted.

“The threads are obscured, and the timeline is sealed,” the sky rumbled. “You’re preventing me from seeing the truth. Daoist Sendor, are you breaking the pact of non-interference?”

“I am precisely protecting the neutrality of my realm,” the man next to Zac countered, the answer confirming his identity.

The face had called him Sendor, but it was the Perennial Vastness in the flesh. Zac had suspected as much since his sudden appearance and the ability to reverse the destruction of a whole world, but it was possible he’d sent one of his disciples.

“You and your daughter brought the conflict of the Fifth Pillar to my doorstep. I acceded, as it’s inevitable that outside struggles will reach the Cosmic Galleries. But you went so far as to supplant the Heavens inside my domain!” Sendor continued, a hint of steel appearing in his voice. “Your offspring made her play, going so far as to summon your Edict to achieve her goals. It failed, resulting in her demise.”

“Impossible!” the sky roared, and the world flickered like a candle in the wind.

“Greed has always been the downfall of your kin,” Sendor sighed as he stabilized the Stand of Saeward.

There was a sense of helplessness in his voice, like an elder witnessing the mistakes of the younger generations yet unable to make them listen to reason.

“Your great-grandfather’s generation ignored my warnings when they discovered the Sealed Mausoleum, and the fallout cost you six Supremacies. The Seventh Heaven already has a Flamebearer. To hunger for a second was to tempt Fate.”

A snort rumbled through the world, but the face made no attempt to refute the claim. Zac mutely listened, memorizing every word. It even felt like the Perennial Vastness intentionally provided him valuable information. Zac had never heard of the Sealed Mausoleum and inwardly vowed never to go there.

Zac wasn’t too surprised the imperial families managed to seize a seal, even a slot for a Flamebearer. They likely had a lot of inside information, and their resources were staggering. The fact it was the Seventh Heaven was news, though. The problem was, would he even remember that fact upon leaving the Perennial Vastness, or would it be sealed along with his memories of Valsa?

“The conflict for the pillar cannot be allowed to taint the gallery any further,” Sendor continued. “I will not discipline the young or bar them from entering future galleries. They are mere tools for the larger struggle. I will, however, seal the ripples of the Left Imperial Palace within my domain. You will have to continue this conflict on the outside.”

“Fine,” the sky acceded after a short pause. “Let me extract my daughter, and we’ll forget this matter.”

Zac’s heart dropped upon hearing the demand. The Planur Supremacy wanted Valsa’s soul. Zac had been fairly confident his secrets were safe just moments ago. However, between the display just now and his lingering sense of danger, he wasn’t so sure. Would the imperials be able to piece together Zac’s identity if Valsa was returned?

Worse, Sendor didn’t immediately reject. Instead, he slowly nodded as a mysterious ripple spread through the realm. Zac tried to plead for the Perennial Vastness to change his mind, but something prevented him from speaking or sending mental messages. Then, the sky shook, and boundless wrath rained down from above.

“You!” a raging roar echoed through the universe, but Sendor shattered the sky with a wave of his sleeve.

“Bastard, that’ll teach you to play around inside my body,” Sendor snorted, his disposition completely different.

The face in the sky dispersed, and Zac was finally rid of the looming sense of danger that had followed him for weeks. He thoughtfully looked up at the stars rearranging themselves to their normal state. Was that the key? A Supremacy had been involved in the scheme against his life. Such beings created powerful ripples on the river of Fate, which could explain why his danger sense had been triggered weeks in advance.

Zac’s eyes soon turned back to the avatar of the realm he stood inside, and Zac’s heart thumped upon seeing the man looking back at him.

“Thank you,” Zac said, his mouth no longer sealed. “Uh, what—”

“Vastermal Planur wanted to resurrect his daughter. Except, he didn’t care about her life. He only extracted her memories, sacrificing her soul and body to circumvent my rules. I guess he wanted the identity of you and the other sealbearers she had exposed,” Sendor explained as a mischievous grin spread across his face.

“Unfortunately for the arrogant little brat, I manipulated the flow of time, tricking him into extracting the memories from six years ago. Long before you even entered my trial. Now, he got nothing useful and still has to deal with the Cosmic backlash. Do these grasshoppers think they can pull one over on me? I was already ancient when their clans were nothing but insignificant households.”

Zac could barely believe what he was hearing. For one, it sounded like the Perennial Vastness was even older than the Limitless Empire and the System itself. Zac couldn’t even begin to comprehend how long Sendor had existed. It far surpassed the nigh-inexhaustible longevity of Supremacies.

But why did he look like a kid who’d just pulled off a prank? It was completely different from the previously transcendent aura he exuded. The more old monsters he ran into, the more it felt like they all had a couple of screws loose. Still, it was undeniable that Sendor had not only saved his life but angered a powerful Supremacy to protect his identity.

However, the question remained why the avatar looked at him with such an unsettling gaze.

60

SENDOR

Sendor’s starry eyes bore into Zac, and the pressure made it difficult to gather his thoughts. He’d been put under the magnifying glass, his fate to be decided by the whims of the giant wielding the glass. Zac was previously annoyed by the lack of interest in his Specialty Core and bloodline when he first entered the Perennial Vastness, but he now desperately longed for that kind of disregard.

At the same time, Zac was excited. The man said it himself, Sendor was ancient when the Limitless Empire came around and most likely already a powerful entity. Did he know the secrets of his bloodline? Had he met Emperor Limitless? Did he know the truth about Laondio and Karz?

The scrutinizing gaze relented, and Zac released a tense breath.

“You’re a pretty interesting brat,” Sendor grinned as he gave Zac a thumbs-up, the image once more clashing with the transcendent master who’d just stared down the Heavens. “Not bad, killing one of those little imperials. Always walking around in my domain like they own the place.”

“No thanks to you,” Zac muttered and immediately regretted it.

Sendor’s lacking energy and laid-back demeanor made Zac momentarily forget that he wasn’t just some cantankerous old man. He was an entity at the level of Supremacies who’d lived far longer than most planets. Thankfully, it didn’t look like the Perennial Vastness minded Zac’s lacking manners.

“I guess that’s my bad,” the avatar laughed. “I was curious what would happen with the seal in the air. The storms the pillars generate can lead to surprising outcomes. I didn’t get anything useful, but you still performed valiantly, even if your final blow was a shortcut. How about this? I’ll make it up to you. What do you want?”

Zac inwardly complained, even if he didn’t dare show anything but deference after his previous faux pas. Was he a magnet for weird and shameless old monsters? Or were they all like that? Reaching the limits of cultivation wasn’t accomplished by measured and reasonable people.

“One second,” Zac said.

He desperately wanted answers, but there were more pressing matters, so he hurried over to Kruta’s side. The barbarian was growing increasingly pallid from the blood loss, and he seemed unable to expel the force of Valsa’s light when unconscious. However, just as Zac was about to take out his Healing Pills, he heard an impatient grunt.

With that, the wounds were just… gone. Even the bone stump had been replaced by a proper leg. Not only that, Zac felt his own body heal in a process that was even more effective than when he used Creation Energy. Even the Dao Mold in his mind was repaired, and the motes of Oblivion stuck in its cracks were ejected into his Soul Aperture.

The only thing that wasn’t restored to its original state was the energy he’d spent, both his own and the Remnants’. His longevity hadn’t recovered from reforging his arm either. Still, his Dao Mold getting repaired saved him over a year and would allow him to head out again immediately without worry about not being in peak condition.

Zac hadn’t sensed any energy, just like when his Duplicity Core was sealed. It was like reality just changed per Sendor’s will. Perhaps he’d rewound time, returning their bodies to a previous state? Either case, it was an incredible ability, especially since it seemingly worked on anything, from wounds to recreating a whole world. Zac’s eyes turned to the unmoving puppet atop the dais.

It didn’t emit any energy, but it hadn’t been the first time Zac saw it either. Was Saeward back? If so, would it remember him interrupting his breakthrough?

“He won’t jump at you again,” Sendor said, grinning at Zac’s hesitance. “Don’t feel bad, kid. He would have failed whether you came crashing into his array or not. Like he’s done a thousand times. He’s never gotten past the fifth bolt, even when aided by one of you brats.”

“What?”

Zac suddenly felt like time was going out of control. He took a few shaky steps to distance himself from the puppet, but the whole atrium was affected. In seconds, Zac witnessed the puppet stand up on the dais and face Heavenly Tribulation dozens of times. The details differed slightly each time, but the end was the same: a scorched, broken puppet unmoving on the ground.

“Saeward hoped to trick the Heavens and reincarnate using the captive souls of his followers in a loop of war and despair,” Sendor smiled. “This scenario was actually his eighth ‘final stand,’ and the one where he’d finally accumulated enough Impetus to make his attempt. Alas, he fell one step short of success, and the Heavens disintegrated his soul.”

“Then this world…” Zac said.

“Saeward’s choices, this thread of Fate… It has potential. Perhaps not with the Heavens in its current state. Perhaps not with the variables introduced in this gallery. But it has the potential to show me something interesting. So, I disentangled the scenario from the river of time. I freed the suffering souls and replaced them with my own creations. Every Cosmic Gallery, the scenario starts anew.”

Sendor looked back at the puppet, and Zac shuddered as he saw the look in the man’s eyes. He still had a playful expression as he looked at Saeward dying repeatedly, but there was a terrifying coldness within that gaze. Not the coldness of hatred or animosity. It was the chill of complete and utter indifference to life and death.

It was beyond the morbid detachment cultivators gained as they walked over the corpses of their enemies on the path of cultivation. It was akin to the unfeeling callousness of the System, where right and wrong didn’t matter. Saeward’s soul being locked into that puppet in an eternal cycle of suffering wasn’t even a punishment. It was just an experiment that may or may not produce results.

“Saeward’s soul will continue to toil until he provides me with an answer. A solution that moves the tapestry closer to completion.”

Zac slowly nodded, putting two and two together. The origin of the various zones and the role he and the other guests played finally came to light. The realms of the Perennial Vastness were seeds of potential collected by Sendor. The guests of the Cosmic Galleries would enter the realms, introducing variables of randomness to the experiments. And because the Heavens were still healing and moving toward perfection, the experiments had to be continuously performed.

“What happens when you get the answer?” Zac asked.

“The Stand of Saeward will be retired, replaced by another scenario.”

“Then, the Quarry?” Zac ventured.

“It’s functionally the same,” Sendor nodded. “You closed the loop by accepting the inheritance and desire of Solevur. The Quarry will no longer appear in future Cosmic Galleries as it has no more potential to extract.”

Saeward eventually stopped moving in the distressing cycle of despair as the castle returned to the state where he’d failed his tribulation, just before Valsa arrived. The rubble from the broken dais reappeared, and Zac could even feel his Dao inside the marks on the ground. From within Saeward’s broken frame, two lights flew up. One moved to Zac, while the other stopped over the still-unconscious Kruta.

“Your prize for reaching the end of the scenario,” Sendor explained.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the remains of a Natural Treasure. Saeward called it the Embryo of the Wargod, which is both inaccurate and a bit boastful,” Sendor laughed. “I call it a [Warstone]. Saeward stumbling onto this thing is how he cooked up this scheme. If you use this shard as a basis for your core, it will naturally generate a bit of energy as you fight. A pretty useful feature for someone walking a path full of Conflict.”

Zac curiously looked at the small stone in his hand and felt the waves of Pure Conflict from within. Just holding it almost made Zac feel like he’d eaten another [Rageroot Oak Seed], even if his mind remained completely clear. Still, his Dao Avatar stirred, and it began its dance between his two cores, swinging its axes in deadly arcs.

The truths of his Branch of the War Axe soon coursed through his veins, which made the stone release even more energy. It was like the resonance between two tuning forks, where the frequencies empowered each other. Thankfully, it only took a thought for the Dao Avatar to stop and sit down, and the [Warstone] calmed soon after.

“Conflict breeds conflict,” Zac muttered, placing the stone into a box and stowing it away.

“Exactly,” Sendor said as the stone hovering above Kruta’s body shot into the Spatial Ring on his hand.

Unfortunately, no quest had been triggered, but Zac believed the barbarian would still be happy with the sudden windfall. Mortals were the only ones who required precious treasures to form their cores, but that didn’t mean cultivators couldn’t benefit from them. The [Warstone] perfectly complemented Kruta’s path, and infusing its essence would elevate the resulting core.

Getting the [Warstone] and securing the final item he needed for his Core Formation was exactly what he’d hoped for when setting the course for the Stand of Saeward. Still, it wasn’t enough to forget the real opportunity that had presented itself. Zac turned to Sendor before he could change his mind or flash away.

“You said you’d make it up to me just now. I’d like some answers,” Zac said, the words spilling out of his mouth. “You’ve seen my bloodline when you inspected me. Can you tell me more about it? How is it related to the Limitless Empire? Is it the bloodline of the Limitless Emperor or someone else?”

“As expected,” Sendor nodded. “Honestly, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I sensed the aura of the Void Emperor on you. Of course, it’s oddly inverted, but the truth couldn’t hide from me. What do you—”

Sendor’s words were interrupted by another rumble in the sky. It wasn’t the imperial who had returned, but the new arrival was still someone familiar. The gathering clouds crackled with power, and Zac felt a vast presence lock onto the area. Time had frozen, yet that wasn’t entirely the case. Zac couldn’t move, but he saw Sendor scratch the base of his antlers as he looked up.

“You don’t want me to speak?” Sendor said as a mischievous smile spread across his lips. “What are you scheming, you troublemaker? Still, I’ve never been one to—”

A loud rumble far surpassing the roars of the Planur Supremacy shook the Stand of Saeward, perhaps all of the Pennial Vastness. For all Zac knew, it could be across all creation, judging by the unfettered force gathering in the clouds above. The stars shattered, unable to withstand the presence of the descent.

Zac had never seen the System gather so much energy, not even close. Even Alvod Jondir’s ascent to Autarchy didn’t create such a scene. And this was just the start. An enormous swirl appeared above their heads, but it didn’t unleash a torrent of Heavenly punishment upon the lands. Instead, a seemingly innocuous item descended from its center.

It was a blue silk scarf, two hands wide, no longer than two meters end to end. There were no runes or engravings on it, but a spatter of dark spots covered one of the sides. It didn’t look like anything special, but that only meant Zac was too ignorant to understand what was going on. Odd fluctuations rippled around it, creating scars that made Zac’s hair stand on end.

It wasn’t space that was being frayed, creating spatial tears. Reality itself couldn’t withstand the piece of cloth and crumbled in front of Zac’s eyes. Zac could tell even the Dao was twisting and turning as eternal truths were coming undone. Meanwhile, cracks spread across the ground, and it looked like the Stand of Saeward would face a second Calamity.

“Fine, fine!” Sendor screamed with alarm as a hairline crack appeared on one of his antlers. “Take that thing away. Are you trying to kill your dear friend!”

Zac still wanted answers. But as things stood, he far more desired for the System to take that thing away. The scarf was far scarier than any Tribulation Lightning. It wasn’t a trial to be overcome—that seemingly unassuming scarf held the Armageddon within its threads.

Thankfully, the System didn’t seem intent on going to war with the Perennial Vastness, and the scarf was dragged back into the swirling vortex. The unfathomable aura of catastrophe lingered for a few seconds like an unspoken warning before it and the clouds dispersed.

“Damn, so touchy,” Sendor swore as he looked up at the sky, once more donning the expression of a disappointed elder. “Too few of us old hands left for you to go around waving those things around. And you know the others all have a few screws loose. Who are you going to reminisce with if I’m not around?”

“That’s…” Zac said, finding his voice no more than a whisper. “What was that?”

“Oh, just some old thing the System keeps around. One of its safeguards to make sure people play by its rules,” Sendor said with an annoyed wave, looking at Zac with mixed emotions. “Sorry, kiddo, looks like I can’t put my hand into this matter. The Terminus Council is mostly forgotten, but their will and Karma still spread through all creation like a web. That scenario is far from over.”

“Terminus Council,” Zac muttered.

The words were almost like a spell, and Zac felt a storm of Fate crashing down on him. However, the feeling was stopped by the receding clouds gathering for one final bout of fury. Karma was erased and Fate subverted, and the clouds drifted apart. The System was leaving, but it imparted Zac with a final message before it was gone.

[Beware the Terminus.]

Zac didn’t dare speak the words again, his heart hammering from the series of events. Just what was going on? Why didn’t the System want him to know the truth? Was it an enemy or a friend? Truthfully, it felt like the System protected him this time around.

It seemed too early to dig into the truth of his origin, but Zac still felt he was a few steps closer. For one, Sendor confirmed the existence of the Void Emperor without Zac mentioning it. The revelation further indicated that his original theory was off. Karz wasn’t the Limitless Emperor. Still, Zac’s instincts told him the two were connected.

Was the Limitless Empire perhaps run by two people, where one stood in the light while the other moved in the shadows? That was entirely possible when remembering Karz’s temperament in his Bloodline Visions. Or was Karz a member of this Terminus Council? If that was the case, why did Zac need to be wary of it? Were they the reason history seemed to have mostly forgotten about a cultivator who could infinitely improve his affinities?

“What a mess,” Sendor muttered as he drew a finger across his antler, which dragged Zac out of his thoughts. “That’s all the information you’ll get for now. Sometimes, scary things come crawling out when you turn over old stones. Ask for something else instead.”

Zac nodded in agreement, noticing that the antler was already whole. Zac didn’t know why, but it felt like Sendor was partly pretending when looking so frazzled at the scarf’s appearance. Still, there was a nugget of truth to the fear in his eyes, and Zac decided to put the matter aside. He could slowly pull on these threads later. There were still benefits to be had.

His gaze turned to Valsa’s Spatial Ring in his hand. A princess sent on an important mission by a Supremacy surely had to be drowning in wealth. However, his experience with Uona’s Spatial Ring made him afraid to infuse even a sliver of Mental Energy into the Spatial Tool. What if Vastermal Planur had marked it? He didn’t even trust K’Rav to deal with this thing.

But if anyone could remove its hidden traps, it would be the man in front of him.

“The Imperial Clans have targeted me, and I think the key to figuring out their plots is within this ring,” Zac said. “With your unfathomable means, perhaps you could help me unlock it?”

“Nice try,” Sendor said with a roll of his eyes. “Do I look like a graverobber to you?”

He’d been rejected outright, but Zac wasn’t about to give up. “The events just now were outside the bounds of Lord Sendor’s trial and affected my ability to gather Mana. How about some…”

“I would, but the System won’t allow me to give things out left and right. You saw how stingy it is. I must follow the framework,” the avatar interjected with a clearly disingenuous smile.

“Then… There are two Remnants in—”

“Go find them yourself. You have the strength,” Sendor lazily said, his enthusiasm clearly waning. “I can give you a small hint related to them, though. Combine their energies, and you’ll be awarded 25,000 Mana.”

Zac inwardly grumbled at how stingy this guy was, but he refused to give in. “You saw how the imperials acted because of my seal. They’ll probably keep cheating on the outside. If you can’t help me with the ring, then could you leave me with my memories of their identities intact? Or perhaps teach me a way to hide the aura of my seal?”

“I guess I could edit your seal only to guard the secrets of my realm,” Sendor shrugged. “I don’t really care if you start messing with the other guests after you’re gone. However, a little brat like you can’t hide the winds of Fate the Seals of the Left Imperial Palace radiate. That array inside your body will trick even Autarchs, though. Of course, it’ll only work if you keep it running.”

“Kruta’s seal too,” Zac quickly added. “He also suffered from this injustice and deserves to understand the threat upon leaving.”

“Fine, but that’s it.”

Zac nodded in thanks. It didn’t completely solve the issue, but it was a start. Zecia was already sealed, so Leandra’s array would be enough during the war. He had only been discovered inside the Perennial Vastness since he didn’t even know it was possible to expose sealbearers. He’d never bothered keeping Leandra’s array active inside the Perennial Vastness either since he constantly shifted between his forms.

On the outside, he always ensured it was active when going off-world, so he didn’t need to change anything. And with Sendor allowing him to remember all the names and faces of the other guests, he would be far-better off than before. Still, Zac felt it insufficient. This shameless old man let a Supremacy plot against him just because he was curious about what would happen. The name of a council he had no way to investigate, and a small adjustment to his seal didn’t feel like enough of a restitution.

Unfortunately, Sendor saw through Zac’s thoughts and waved his sleeve at Zac with annoyance. “Brat, didn’t you hear me when I talked with Vastermal? You can’t get too greedy. Ai, I need to go into seclusion. What was the System thinking, bringing that inauspicious thing into my body?”

Sendor was gone before he finished his sentence, preventing Zac from asking for anything else. However, his voice returned a second later. “Oh, if you want to pick that thing up, you’d better hurry. The other guests will soon sense it.”

Zac was about to ask what Sendor was talking about, but he felt his vision shift. It stretched out from the castle gates and across the now-desolate battlefield and into the isolating shroud where he fought Valsa the first time. There, he spotted a dozen corpses lying among dried weeds. There was also the deep crack from [Arcadia’s Judgement], from which a floating sigil had emerged, releasing increasingly powerful ripples of truth.

An outer court seal.

61

ONE BY NINE

Zac only caught a glimpse of the seal before he was back in his own body, where he was greeted by a groan as Kruta finally stirred. Then, the barbarian shot to his feet, eyes wide as he looked for threats. None remained, and Valsa’s body had fully dissipated already, so Kruta turned to Zac with a confused look plastered on his face.

“You’re up,” Zac smiled.

“Uh,” Kruta said as he looked around. “Did I beat that wench?”

“Something like that,” Zac laughed, but his thoughts were still on that seal.

Who would have thought one of Valsa’s followers held an outer court seal? Had they ambushed another guest in the same manner as him? Perhaps a trial run using one of her followers before getting the real thing? The seal’s appearance made him worry for Catheya and Ogras for a second, but the unclaimed seal thankfully belonged neither to the Hollow nor Daedalian Courts.

It belonged to the final court yet not within his cycle: the Indomitable Court.

“Wait, when did I get healed?” Kruta said as he looked down at his fully-restored body. “What’s going on?”

Zac briefly recounted what just transpired, skipping over the System’s entry or the matters regarding his bloodline.

“Those imperials have always been shameless,” Kruta sighed. “But to think she actually summoned Vastermal the Benevolent.”

“Didn’t seem that benevolent to me,” Zac muttered.

“The dynasty of the previous emperor was very turbulent. The Planur Dynasty waged a series of ruthless wars, both as aggressor and defender. It reached a point where Vul’Zerdo Planur was called the Blood Emperor,” Kruta shrugged. “When Emperor Vastermal took the throne, he donned the epithet of benevolence to indicate the Empire’s future direction. And things have been relatively stable under his rule.”

Zac nodded, though managing the Planur Dynasty had nothing to do with Vastermal. That job was left to the younger generations. The Supremacies only bothered with the titles because they brought tangible benefits: faith. Ancient factions’ A-grade Emperors and Sect Leaders were essentially gods lording over their domains. That gathered Faith Energy, which was apparently quite useful even to the top dogs of the Multiverse.

“Still, can’t believe the big boss himself came down to heal me,” Kruta grinned. “I guess Kruta the Great is too handsome to stay down for long. I must be fated for greatness.”

“Fated…” Zac muttered as he thoughtfully looked at his companion.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Kruta shuddered. “Giving me the creeps.”

“You have a decision to make,” Zac said. “A decision that will have a great impact on your future.”

“What?” Kruta said, his expression sobering upon hearing Zac’s words. “Is it related to the imperials?”

“Both yes and no,” Zac said, collecting his thoughts. “Something big is happening on the outside, something that has made many of the peak factions stir. A small part of that struggle has been turned into a trial for the younger generation. It starts in three years, where the cut off point is 100 years of age. Valsa targeted me because I have one of the tickets to that trial.”

“Why did you suddenly decide to tell me this?” Kruta asked.

“Because it turns out one of her followers carried a ticket as well. It’s currently left where we first fought Valsa. No one has found it yet, but it’s just a matter of time,” Zac said. “You have to decide whether you want to seize the opportunity.”

“A trial important enough to have an imperial emperor barge into this place,” Kruta mused. “What can you tell me?”

“I’m not sure if I should divulge the event’s origin, but it has made the ancient factions go mad. The Seventh Heaven is already involved, and the First Heaven tried to sneak in by killing other guests and me. More peak factions beyond the imperials are also involved, but I don’t know who. One thing’s for sure: the dangers will be far beyond the Red Zones, and it’ll be crawling with people like Valsa. Powerful factions will send their most talented people.”

Kruta’s eyes glimmered with desire and battle lust, but he reined himself in. “Will that mean I’d compete with you for the inheritance? What kind of trial is it?”

“No one knows what will happen inside, but there are indications that teams will be formed. I’m not aiming for the main prize. Some real monsters will join the contest. I’ll let the peak factions fight it out over the inheritance. I plan to grab some random goodies before escaping with my life.”

Kruta’s eyes lit up at that. “Good! I knew I made the right decision grabbing onto your thigh!”

“So, you’re in?” Zac smiled.

“When has Kruta the Great ever shied from some danger!” Kruta said, grandly slapping his chest. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

Zac nodded, and they stood before the seal five minutes later. It looked exactly the same as in the vision. It was a replica of the Seal of the Indomitable Court made of pure energy. Zac guessed only the unused fragments would be found in things like rocks or statuettes, while those seized through battle would be more obvious.

The ripples it released were filled with the truth of the Lost Plane, of Ultom. It didn’t hold as much energy as the unused seals, but it was much more than Zac expected. It was almost certain to provide Kruta with an epiphany.

“This…” Kruta said hesitantly as he looked at the floating seal. “I’ve never seen energy like this before. It’s not Dao. It’s… I don’t know what.”

“It’s unique,” Zac nodded. “Just joining the trial is an opportunity in itself. It should give you a powerful epiphany. It can’t help with your Dao, but it’ll provide a moment of utmost clarity and comprehension. It can be used for all kinds of things, from upgrading your blueprint to techniques and manuals. The sky’s the limit.”

“Anything?” Kruta said.

“It’s how I came up with my trickster core, as you call it,” Zac smiled.

“Well, I don’t know if I want such a weird Cosmic Core, but there are a few things I’ve been wracking my brain over,” Kruta muttered. “Alright, here I go.”

Zac stepped back as Kruta touched the seal, and it was gone in a flash of light. Kruta’s eyes closed, and he stood immovable for over ten minutes. Zac looked on, feeling a pang of desire as Ultom’s aura drained from the area. That blissful state of total comprehension was almost like a drug. Even a weakened seal would have to be far beyond what the tainted lake water provided.

What would happen if he claimed outer court seals during the war? Could he claim the insights but discard the ticket?

Eventually, Kruta’s eyes opened, and he looked at Zac in shock.

“This… this…” Kruta said. “Not even the greatest tribes can provide inspiration at this level. I doubt even the imperials can.”

“Yeah, it’s something else,” Zac agreed.

“Indomitable Court,” Kruta said, his eyes veritably burning. “You’re really my good brother!”

Zac was happy he could provide Kruta with the opportunity, and not just because the Indomitable Court was the only missing piece to his quest. Finding companions you could trust with your life was difficult, and Kruta had proven his mettle inside the Stand of Saeward.

“Can you tell me what’s going on now that I’m tied to your chariot?” Kruta grinned.

The phrasing piqued Zac’s curiosity, and he opened his Quest Screen.

One by Nine (Unique, Inheritance): Form a full cycle of Sealbearers. Reward: Entry to the Left Imperial Palace (9/9) [1343 days] (COMPLETE)

[NOTE: Multiple cycles can be formed.]

Zac nodded with satisfaction as he closed the Status Screen. With Kruta and the Indomitable Court, he had a full set with some spares. When he first saw the requirements, he wondered how he’d ever complete the quest. Now, it didn’t seem impossible to form a second cycle through the war.

With that out of the way, Zac explained the broad strokes to Kruta as he had to his followers and the theories he and Ogras had come up with so far.

“You weren’t kidding,” Kruta exhaled. “Left Imperial Palace of the Limitless Empire? An Eternal Heritage that’s also a pillar of the Ruthless Heavens?”

“Are you okay?” Zac asked.

“If I’m okay?” Kruta said, an almost deranged grin spreading across his face. “This is the kind of opportunity that cultivators dream of. The kind of opportunity that can completely reforge one’s fate and leave a mark on history.”

“It’ll be extremely dangerous,” Zac commented.

“So what!” Kruta roared as his aura exploded toward the sky. “I’d rather die aiming for greatness than live a safe but ignoble life! Besides, let the others fight for the Eternal Heritage. I just want the soup!”

Zac nodded in agreement. You’d never reach the peak without putting it all on the line. That was a fundamental truth of the Multiverse, to the point it was hard-wired into the System itself. And even if he wanted his friends and followers to stay safe, they had the right to take a chance on themselves in their pursuit of the Dao.

“What now?” Kruta said, his surging momentum causing the haze around them to stir. “How do I find the other pieces?”

“Ah,” Zac said, his eyes glazing over.

Only then did Zac realize the logistical issue of adding a follower from the other side of the Multiverse. Kruta belonged to the Redleaf Tribe of the Everwind Steppes, which was actually a vast region on a B-grade continent. Apparently, the steppes were the size of a large C-grade continent, far larger than any frontier continent, which was almost impossible for Zac to comprehend.

Crossing the steppes from one side to the other would take a Hegemon millennia, if they even survived the journey. The region was filled with dangerous beasts, and even Beast Emperors couldn’t be considered too rare. There were also tens of thousands of danger zones, odd anomalies created by the tremendous energies and Daos released by a B-grade world.

More importantly, the Everwind Steppes’ continent was extremely far from Zecia.

Directions were iffy with the confusing dimensional composition of the Multiverse, but the steppes and the Seven Empires could be considered on the “other side.” The distance between Zecia and the Undead Empire was much shorter between the Everwind Steppes and the Undead Empire.

Kruta getting to Zecia was incredibly difficult, and even his Autarch elders would be hard-pressed to accomplish that feat. The cost alone would be utterly staggering. And it wasn’t even a matter of resources and willingness. You needed connections to cross such vast swathes of space. Zac doubted that a B-grade tribe could cross multiple multiversal quadrants and empires, at least not in a few years.

“What’s going on?” Kruta said, noticing Zac’s silence.

“Honestly, I’m not sure you need them to enter the inheritance,” Zac said. “Though getting the full seal is obviously much better.”

Zac wasn’t just making things up. His followers getting just one piece of the seals was enough for his quest to progress. With Kruta, he’d already formed a cycle, even if no one had a full seal. He and Ogras believed a fragment would be enough to enter, but a full seal would be required to enter the main parts and trials.

“But I won’t find them here,” Kruta surmised, his eyes glimmering with understanding. “You said you’re from the frontier.”

“The exact location of the inheritance is still unknown, but it’s probably at the edge of my home Sector and the Endless Storm,” Zac said. “The whole Sector is sealed, and only Monarchs and lower can enter. Representatives from the Multiverse Heartlands are currently turning the place upside down in search of seal fragments.”

“I can’t believe the kind of luck you have,” Kruta said, looking at Zac with wonderment. “One of the greatest inheritances of the Limitless Empire popped up in your backyard?”

Zac wryly smiled. He wondered what Kruta would think if he heard it wasn’t a coincidence. According to the Void Priestess, Ultom had picked him as an inheritor. Without the System’s interference, there wouldn’t have been a contest for seals or any trials.

That alone filled Zac with mixed emotions. It felt a bit like he’d been robbed of his good fortune, while at the same time benefitting him from someone else’s hard work. He ultimately hadn’t done anything to deserve the attention of the Left Imperial Palace. His mother’s clan had somehow found and stolen the bloodline of the Void Emperor for their experiments.

Zac wasn’t a true descendant, and he sometimes likened himself to a thief and an impostor. It was another example of his fate being decided by things outside his control. Ultimately, he’d reached the same conclusion as he had with the Remnants and the System’s interference. He wasn’t in a position to say no to opportunities and power just because he didn’t like how he got them.

“Still, that’s a problem,” Kruta frowned. “Just leaving the Ralphi Continent without going through the Heavens is almost impossible. Me reaching the frontier? I can’t see a way. Even if my elders tried to plot a path with the help of porters, I fear the imperial families would catch wind of it. If they’re even sending people into places like the Perennial Vastness in search of tickets, they’re looking high and low.”

Zac nodded, sighing with regret. But then it hit him. Didn’t he know someone who might be able to help?

“Have you heard of the Tayn Family or Dynasty?” Zac said. “They should be pretty famous.”

He initially hadn’t thought of this option because of the rules governing the Perennial Vastness, but that had completely changed now that he and Kruta’s confidentiality seals only affected the details of the realm itself.

“Pretty famous? That’s the understatement of the century,” Kruta guffawed. “Those lunat—”

“Stop,” Zac said with a wave of his hand. “I don’t want to know.”

“Ah?” Kruta said, looking at Zac with confusion. “Then why did you bring it up?”

Zac knew he wasn’t being rational, but he really didn’t want to know the details of Iz’s background. Her identity was no doubt terrifying, her unfathomable strength alone was proof of that. Still, Zac felt something would change with their relationship once he learned the specifics of her family. He wanted to hold onto the simple friendship he’d formed with Iz for as long as possible, even if he was sticking his head in the sand.

“It’s complicated,” Zac said. “Suffice to say, I’m friends with Iz Tayn. She’s part of the younger generation of that faction.”

Kruta’s expression told him that the clarification was entirely superfluous and that he absolutely knew who Iz was, but Zac powered on.

“If you can contact Iz and mention my name, they might help ferry you over to the frontier. They might not, though, or demand something in return. I don’t know. I don’t think Iz would mind, but I haven’t really dealt with anyone else in her family.”

“You’re friends with Iz Tayn?” Kruta said, looking at Zac like he’d suddenly grown three heads and six arms. “And you’re not messing with me? Is this some test to have those lun—ahem. To have the esteemed Tayns test my Fate?”

“Do I look that bored?” Zac said. “Didn’t you just say you’d die a thousand deaths in pursuit of greatness?”

“Not much greatness in getting your whole tribe turned into ash,” Kruta muttered, but he took a steadying breath. “Fine! I’ll have my elder convey the message when I return. I’ll mention your name front, back, and center. If it fails, I’ll just see you inside the trial.”

“Sure,” Zac smiled.

“I guess we’re done here?” Kruta said. “I can’t believe that bastard extracted all the spirituality from the puppets. Not even the champions are worth their weight as scrap now.”

“I know,” Zac said, his intestines twisting at the loss. Then he remembered Sendor’s words and looked at Kruta hopefully. “Do you know how to open Valsa’s Spatial Ring without triggering any seals or traps?”

Kruta answered with a resounding laugh, dashing that idea.

“Never mind,” Zac sighed. “Well, there’s at least some good stuff in the castle.”

Kruta nodded, but Zac had one more thing to do before returning. He swept through the battlefield, looting the fallen warriors. He didn’t expect a bunch of deathsworn to carry any wealth worth mentioning, he was more interested in their bodies. Six were damaged to the point he couldn’t motivate the expenditure of Creation Energy, but the others would become the next generation of Einherjar’s elites.

There was a whisper of caution in the back of his head, of the danger of using bodies with such a troublesome providence. But he’d already made the decision. He needed citizens and believed in Sendor’s ability to thoroughly erase any Karmic Threads upon exiting the Cosmic Gallery. If anything, his confidence only increased after seeing Sendor toy with the Planur Supremacy.

“What?” Zac said when seeing Kruta’s odd look.

“It’s easy to forget you’re also a Draugr when you walk around in your human form,” Kruta said as Zac stowed the final body into his Corpse Sack. “Doesn’t it feel weird, raising your enemies to fight for you?”

“Not really,” Zac said after some thought. “I guess it would have been awkward if they retained their memories. The Revenants who awaken don’t mind either. After all, my conflict with these people allowed them to be born. Besides, aren’t you kind of the same, summoning the ghost of your ancestor to help you out?”

“That’s different!” Kruta rejected, but his brows slowly scrunched together in thought. “That’s… Huh… Am I actually a Necromancer?”

“I have some Lich techniques if you want them,” Zac laughed, and they set course for Saeward’s Castle. “Let’s see if there are any goodies left.”

62

PARTNERSHIP

Zac and Kruta were exhausted despite Sendor healing their wounds, but the thought of loot brought a spring in their step. It took them thirty minutes to break the arrays, then they carefully harvested the Conflict-attuned flowers and herbs in the garden, not even sparing the Spiritual Soil. It wasn’t every day you found D-grade War-attuned soil, at least not soil that wasn’t sullied by blood and resentment.

Next, they turned to Saeward himself. They hadn’t dared pilfer his remains right away, afraid lingering Tribulation Lightning or remnants of Saeward’s consciousness hid within the puppet. Unfortunately, the metals that were once supposed to hold the consciousness of a Monarch had been reduced to nothing but scorched refuse that crumbled from the slightest amount of exerted pressure.

Zac even doubted the material had ever been as good as whatever Saeward used in his original attempt. Seeing as Sendor had meddled with the power of the Tribulation Lightning, he’d most likely brought the puppet itself down to a reasonable level for the scenario. Still, they managed to gather three fist-sized clumps of mostly unscathed metal Zac estimated to be at Early D-grade, bordering Supreme-quality.

It looked as fragile as paper when faced with Heaven’s wrath, yet Zac wasn’t able to twist it at all when straining. Better yet, it contained a strong attunement to the Dao of Conflict, and there was even a hint of the punishing aura of the Tribulation Lightning locked within.

‘I want this,’ Alea’s voice echoed in his mind.

‘Alright,’ Zac agreed. ‘Some of those array orbs are still mostly intact. I thought their materials might suit you.’

‘You know just how to treat a lady,’ Alea laughed as her consciousness receded into the necklace.

“Do you want this?” Zac asked.

“No good,” Kruta rejected while furiously searching for a Spatial Ring within the rubble. “The material has gained a hint of tribulation, and would be harmful to my ancestor. You keep it.”

Zac nodded in thanks and had soon swept the whole area for anything in decent shape.

They unfortunately didn’t find any Spatial Treasures. Their original goal had been to find Saeward’s inheritance, but it looked like Saeward took his hoard to the grave when the Tribulation Lightning ripped apart his Inner World. There were weak spatial fluctuations around the puppet, but neither Zac nor Kruta had the skills or tools to open a pathway to its crumbling fragments.

And even if they did, would they dare enter? The fragments of Saeward’s world were likely extremely dangerous and unstable.

With the atrium and outer sections picked clean, they attempted breaking into the hidden compartments of the castle. But no matter what they did, they couldn’t find a way inside. A new array had awakened, which rendered their attacks useless. Zac even swapped to his Draugr form and used everything but [Pillar of Desolation].

They managed to carve some decent scars into the stone, but it healed in seconds. Worse, they’d spotted another defensive array empowering the stones.

“Damn, the chambers were probably set up to seal shut when the arrays lost their mental connection to Saeward,” Kruta said, glaring at the puppet. “A thoroughbred bastard to the end.”

“There’s nothing we can do?” Zac asked.

“I doubt it,” Kruta grunted as he swung his blade at the wall once more. “These types of arrays are a pain in the ass. We’d have to besiege it, exhausting more energy than it can absorb from the environment.”

“And that’s easier said than done,” Zac said, looking across the atrium with a grimace. “The energy density is almost unbearable with Saeward’s array gone.”

“That’s not the only problem. Someone like Saeward would have installed fallbacks. Breaking the array might release a deadly attack or destroy everything inside. Perhaps both.”

“And an unorthodox cultivator like Saeward would probably keep anything of value on himself,” Zac agreed. “You never know when you’d have to run.”

Ultimately, they decided to be happy with what they had. Neither wanted to wait for the rest of the guests to arrive and besiege the inner chamber, which could take months. Zac had already accomplished his goal by getting the [Warstone] and dealing with the hidden threat. As a bonus, he even gained some important information and good materials for Alea.

That fact alone indicated there probably wasn’t anything worthwhile inside the inner chambers.

Kruta’s mood vastly improved after stumbling onto the [Warstone] inside his Spatial Ring. Zac had completely forgotten to mention the treasure because of the seal appearing, but Kruta had laughed so loud the castle walls shook upon finding it. That jubilation only grew upon learning Zac possessed his own piece. Between the Seal of the Indomitable Court and the [Warstone], Kruta really came out ahead.

“Haha, a good day to be Kruta!” the barbarian said.

“There’s still Valsa’s treasure as well,” Zac added. “If we figure out a way to open that thing.”

“Keep it,” Kruta said with a generous wave. “How could some E-grade cultivator’s resources compare to the gift of the Indomitable Court? You know what? Here.”

Zac looked over curiously and gasped when the barbarian produced three pieces of bone. Each one was a different color, and they all emitted incredibly ferocious auras and thrummed with bloodline power. It was like staring at three Primordial Beasts rather than bones. At first, it appeared they were engraved, but Zac soon realized they were naturally formed patterns.

“Emperor Bones?” Zac whistled.

“Refined fragments of them,” Kruta said. “You didn’t find anything for your beautiful Beastcrafted axe. C-grade bones would destroy it, but my tribe has extracted most of its energy. What remains is far purer than what you’d find from Beast Kings. They should be the perfect nourishment for your companion’s next step.”

Verun’s desirous roars in Zac’s mind confirmed Kruta’s words. The Spirit Tool vibrated inside his Spatial Ring, to the point Zac believed it would try to break out. Of course, he couldn’t let Verun consume something like that in the middle of a Red Zone, so Zac appeased the spirit before turning to Kruta.

“Are you sure?” Zac said.

“What are a few bones between friends?” Kruta grinned.

Zac nodded in thanks and accepted the bones. He was in high spirits as they left the castle, where they performed a cursory sweep of the battlefield before heading toward the exit.

The Stand of Saeward felt quite desolate now that the native inhabitants were all gone, even if the lands were still teeming with energy. With the hidden threat dealt with, they made better time on their return trip. The only interruptions were a few encounters with other guests, which provided some loot and Mana.

It turned out that none of the other cultivators experienced the destruction and subsequent reformation of the realm, and neither had they seen the face in the sky or the System’s arrival. They had only felt a series of powerful surges of energy coming from the heart of the zone, after which they’d realized all Hero Souls and puppets were gone.

As expected, many were moving toward Saeward’s Castle in search of answers, but the lack of a quest meant many guests remained cautious. Most believed the energy surges were just the kick-off to the event, and Zac heard plenty of Kruta’s old theories as they interrogated people.

A few coalitions were still trying to guard the exit, but making a bloody example out of a group quickly opened a path.

“I’m going into seclusion for a bit,” Kruta said as they appeared in Vastness City. “I need to digest all this stuff.”

“We’ll talk later,” Zac said.

Kruta waved, and they returned to their respective storefronts. Zac sighed in relief as he appeared in his mansion. The familiar fluctuations from within the walls provided a sense of security, bringing attention to the ball of stress he’d held all this time. It was no wonder. He had mostly become accustomed to life and death on the battlefield, but it was something else entirely to be targeted by a Supremacy.

There was nothing that could be done when faced with that kind of threat—he wasn’t even an ant to beings like that. Valsa had only summoned a whisp of her ancestor’s true power, and that sliver had been enough to disintegrate a whole world.

Suddenly, Zac felt very alone, and he sent out a message. It didn’t even take ten seconds before the teleportation array activated and Catheya emerged. She breathed out in relief upon seeing he was okay and hugged him tightly.

“Thank the Heavens!” Catheya sighed. “I’ve had a bad feeling for days, but we couldn’t find anything. What happened?”

“It’s a long story,” Zac said as he led her into his living room. “I—”

Zac’s words caught in his throat as a large shape blocked his vision. A toad.

“What the hell?” Zac exclaimed, his mind trying but failing to figure out how this odd toad managed to track him down all the way from the Calamity.

Catheya yelled in alarm, and a wall of frigid ice appeared to shield them. However, as a gentle voice spoke, the ice melted like snow in spring.

“Her name is Esmeralda.”

Zac did a double-take at a woman sitting by the window reading a book. She was human, wearing a simple white linen dress. Her strawberry-yellow hair was fastened in a practical bun, and she didn’t wear any tools of jewelry—not even a Spatial Ring.

Her unadorned appearance and utter lack of aura could make one mistake her for a village girl, but that obviously wasn’t the case. The Dharma was partly muted thanks to his Mana, but it was still enough to drive any F-grade cultivator mad. Of course, there was also the fact that not even a guest would be able to find this place, yet she’d made it her home. And with Esmeralda’s lacking strength, she had to be the one who brought the toad here.

This stranger was undoubtedly another old monster, even if she didn’t appear as intimidating as Lord Engo or his master. The pressing question was where her allegiance lay. Was she another disciple of the Perennial Vastness, or related to Valsa? Was it both?

She smiled. “Dear, would you let us borrow your friend for a few minutes?”

“A-alright,” Catheya said after giving Zac a look. “I’ll go take a walk in the garden.”

Zac nodded. Esmeralda was content to sit and look haughty while the youthful woman gave Zac a mysterious smile, setting the book down. The silence stretched until Zac couldn’t take it, even if there wasn’t any pressure like when Sendor observed him with his creepy gaze.

“Uh, I’m Zac.”

“I’m aware. It’s nice to meet you. You can call me Lova. Don’t mind me. I’m just here to facilitate your meeting and translate.”

“Translate… for the toad?” Zac said, glancing at his old traveling companion.

Esmeralda seemed annoyed at Zac’s demeanor, and began croaking while forming a series of signs that Zac, for some reason, felt were insults.

“Esmeralda has been very impressed with your performance over the past years and wishes to extend an offer.”

“She said that?” Zac said, looking suspiciously at Esmeralda, who in turn glared at the woman.

“Well, in so many words.”

“What kind of offer?”

“A partnership.”

“To do what?” Zac asked, when what the mysterious woman had said before struck him. “Wait, you’ve been spying on me?”

“On occasion,” Lova said. “We’ve also followed a few other candidates. But Esmeralda picked you since you killed Valsa Planur and cemented your status as a Flamebearer. Personally, I think it’s for the best. Valsa Planur’s fate was limited. The current generation of the First Heaven is much too disappointing. To think that girl was a direct descendant to Vurkos Planur, who seized the second pillar in such a domineering fashion. I expected more, even if she lacked her Imperial Faith.”

Zac glanced at Esmeralda. Her strangely human expression said he’d just won the lottery by being graced by her attention. The toad had been a bit lofty even back in the Calamity, but it was nothing compared to now. Was it because she’d brought a powerful backer?

“Were you there in the Stand of Saeward?” Zac asked, unable to prevent the hint of steel from appearing in his voice.

“No. It would be troublesome if Emperor Vastermal discovered us. We did observe her extensively the past days, though,” Lova said, not the least shamefaced by their actions.

Zac took a steadying breath to control the anger bubbling beneath the surface. He’d drive himself into an early grave if he blew a gasket whenever he was used or manipulated by these selfish old cultivators.

“A partnership for what?” Zac asked again, suspecting he knew the answer.

“Esmeralda needs to enter the Left Imperial Palace, so I’m hoping you could take her.”

“You’re a sealbearer?” Zac said, indignity partly replaced by surprise, but the toad shook her head.

“Only cultivators and beasts who have reached Atavism can become sealbearers. But that’s fine. There are other paths to entry,” Lova said as she took out an ancient-looking parchment. “The Enshrinement of Kanba. It’s from an interesting society deep in the Eternal Storm. They consecrate beasts in a faith-based cultivation system. This binding will make you the speaker for the Beast Deity.”

“Uh, what?” Zac was decidedly unenthused by the idea of becoming the priest of a toad god.

“Well, that’s just in their society,” Lova laughed. “In practice, it means Esmeralda could temporarily create a shrine—a subspace—in your body and join the Left Imperial Palace that way. It will also create a mental link to allow you to communicate better. It will even temporarily allow you to use part of Esmeralda’s skills and abilities.”

“No offense, but why use some weird method from the Endless Storm?” Zac said with suspicion. “There are many ways to contract beasts.”

“It’s for your benefit,” Lova explained. “For one, Esmeralda is more unique than you can imagine. No Hegemon can bear a conventional binding with her. Secondly, the enshrinement will not leave a mark on your path. It’s more of a temporary housing agreement and will not affect your pathways, combat effectiveness, or System evaluation. The only detriment is that you must expend some Cosmic Energy to maintain the shrine. Not much is needed, though, and it will not impact you after forming a core.”

Esmeralda eagerly nodded, and her tongue lashed out to grab the parchment, bringing it to Zac, though he didn’t accept it.

“No offense, but I’ve seen you in action,” Zac said as he took a step back. “You’re fast, but I’ll be even faster by the time the trial starts. And your aura is even weaker now than when we last met. What can you bring to the table?”

Esmeralda looked incredibly affronted, and made a series of angry croaks. Of course, with her tongue still stretched toward Zac, they came out distorted.

“Esmeralda isn’t a beast bred for battle like those Beast Tamers contract,” Lova said with a laugh. “Her expertise lies elsewhere. And don’t worry. She’s in a phase of rapid growth. Truthfully, the Esmeralda you see in front of you now is not her true form. She’s not even an undead creature. Eons ago, she had the reputation of being one of the best… infiltrators… of the Multiverse.”

“Infiltrator?” Zac said. “A thief?”

Esmeralda excitedly nodded.

“Wait, best in the Multiverse?” Zac said. “Does that mean…?”

“She could be considered a Supremacy,” Lova confirmed, making Zac look at the unassuming toad suspiciously.

“Are you two messing with me?”

There was just no way this supersized toad matched the aura or power of the two Supremacies he’d just encountered in the Stand of Saeward. Esmeralda croaked with exasperation, then her eyes widened, and she disappeared in a puff. Before Zac could ask where she went, she returned, the parchment on her tongue replaced by another item: a box.

“What?” Zac gasped.

It was the main item consecrated in the hidden temple across from his mansion, emitting the same hair-raising aura as when he first saw it. Zac had almost gotten himself killed getting his hands on the [Lucky Beads], and they weren’t even part of the temple arrangements. They’d just been lying on a pillow in front of the shrine. Meanwhile, Esmeralda took a few seconds to abscond with what probably was the best thing, barely breaking a sweat? Would she be able to do the same inside the Left Imperial Palace?

It took all Zac’s willpower not to welcome Esmeralda to his team right then and there.

63

ESMERALDA

Esmeralda thumped her chest as she wagged the box in front of Zac. Clinging to his doubts, he moved to a nearby window. Catheya was sitting on a bench in the pebble garden, occasionally glancing in his direction. She lit up upon seeing him, who waved at her assuredly and turned back into the room.

Catheya hadn’t noticed Esmeralda coming and going, by the looks of it, and neither was there any response from the ghost temple on the other side of the peak. There wasn’t even a Karmic ripple indicating they had been robbed.

Zac wondered if it were really Esmeralda who’d gotten her hands on it. He couldn’t help but look at Lova sitting by the neighboring window. It had been a deadly tribulation to enter the ghost temple for him, but for this mysterious woman…

“I assure you, I had nothing to do with that box,” Lova said in response to his questioning stare. “She really entered the temple just now. Esmeralda’s unique bloodline allows her to resist or even ignore many forms of restrictions. That includes the Karmic suppression of the Sangha. Avoiding troublesome Karmic entanglements is a key skill for any good thief.”

Zac wasn’t sure what to believe. There was no way to confirm what was true and false, though his instincts told him Lova wasn’t making things up.

“Besides, I killed too many monks in my heyday,” Lova added, looking a bit helpless. “I’ve spent four hundred thousand years reining in my killing intent and performing merit to whittle away the Karmic debt levied on my path. Esmeralda is a dear friend, but I wouldn’t undo my hard work by helping her rob one of their Lotus Pavilions.”

“I’ve seen the things inside that temple. Will they come causing trouble because of this?” Zac asked.

“What you see is not necessarily real,” Lova said, glancing toward the other side of the peak. “With the Dharma, the bounds between reality and fantasy are often muddled. Powerful belief can turn the unreal real, but it remains a rootless existence. Without sustained piety, creation will return to the bounds of illusion. This Lotus Pavilion was created from the belief of a powerful Arhat, but he is long gone.

“The temples you see are echoes of memories that retain some of the original’s strength through the Karmic Link to the Sangha. The items within are in a state of perpetual uncertainty. They are real, yet they are not. By taking the items, you shift the needle toward certainty, but it was only possible by Akaniṣṭha sanctioning it. As to why the Sangha allows this, you should well understand.”

The backhanded nature of the Sangha’s gifts was nothing new to him. Every gift was a Karmic debt, every encounter a Karmic Link binding you closer to the Dharma. They were like a casino. Some would win when coming through the Sangha’s doors and walk away with riches, but the house always comes out ahead.

And everyone believed themselves to be destined for victory.

Was he any different? His eyes gleamed as he looked at the toad and the box she had her tongue wrapped around. “And you’re just giving this to me?”

Esmeralda shrugged and threw the box, and Zac’s heart lurched as he urgently grabbed it.

“Esmeralda more enjoys the hunt than the prize itself nowadays. Outsmarting the defenses, breaking the restrictions, and seizing the item is an affirmation of her path,” Lova commented. “Oh, you probably shouldn’t open that thing. At least not unless you want to blow up this whole mountain.”

“What!” Zac wheezed, his hand freezing just as he was about to open the lid.

“The Sangha’s Lotus Pavilions are Dharmic cleansing arrays. The treasures consecrated within are usually calamitous items with immense fell Karma. Even if this is just an echo made real, it’s bound to be extremely dangerous.”

“Why would the Buddhists consecrate something like that?” Zac asked, stuck between wanting to throw the box far away and not daring to let go.

“The light shines the brightest after the darkness of the night,” Lova hummed, and Zac felt like she was talking about herself just as much as the box. “Eventually, the sin will be purified by the Buddhist Hymns and the soothing waves of the Brahma, and the calamitous item will become a Dharmic Instrument of great power.”

“But until then…” Zac said.

“Well…” Lova smiled. “The night is the night until daybreak arrives. Right now, you could consider it a bomb. If everything else fails, open the lid and run for your life.”

Zac warily looked at the box. When he first saw it, he’d thought it an incredible treasure considering its place of honor. Turns out those crazy monks put a doomsday device in their temple. Still, Zac didn’t throw the thing away. How many times had he survived by the skin of his teeth by blowing something up? You never knew when you needed a big bomb to get out of a jam.

“Of course, it would be even better if you could continue the cleansing yourself,” Lova added. “The Lotus Pavilion has already done most of the heavy lifting, but I can tell the item within is not yet irrevocably bound to the Sangha. You might get a surprising prize if you continue to erode the fell Karma and resentment with your Dao.”

That got Zac’s attention. Even an echo of such an item, which Zac assumed was the same as a replica, had to be extremely powerful for someone at his level.

“How long would I need to refine it?” Zac asked.

“Not long,” Lova said. “A few centuries at most with providence as powerful as yours.”

“Oh,” Zac grunted and stowed the box, though only after winding a rope around it a few times just in case.

A few centuries wasn’t long for someone like Lova, but it certainly was to him. There was no way he’d refine it in time for the war unless he found some way to supercharge the process. Perhaps Ogras would have an idea. After all, the process sounded very similar to whatever he had planned for his banner.

“Esmeralda is clearly an amazing thief,” Zac said, getting an approving nod from the toad. “But she’s no Supremacy. And if she were, how would she even enter the trial? The age limit is 100 years. Surely you’re aware?”

“We all struggle with the concept of death, and Esmeralda was growing old,” Lova said. “Truthfully, many grow more fearful the older they get. When you’ve lived for an eternity, it can be hard to face the fact the end is drawing close. They become increasingly desperate to break through and steal more longevity from the Heavens. Others try to supplement their waning lifeforce through other means.”

Lova looked at Esmeralda, who proudly looked back. “I’m sure you can appreciate how rare such treasures are, items that can provide a meaningful amount of longevity to those at the peak. Even if you get your hands on something, it usually only replenishes a few percent. Esmeralda managed to steal an item that functionally made her immortal.”

“What!” Zac said with shock. “Immortality is real?”

“True immortality?” Lova said. “Probably not? At least not yet. But a few aberrations have managed to mimic the effect to varying degrees of success. Esmeralda is one such example. The Primo of your Undead Empire is another, as are a few entities hidden in the depths of the Buddhist Sangha. Unfortunately, even false immortality comes with a price.

“The item Esmeralda stole provides her with an unceasing font of longevity, but she has been forcibly reincarnated hundreds of times. She loses a sliver of herself each time, and the reincarnations are coming in more frequently. She needs to enter the Left Imperial Palace to find an item that can suppress the effect of the temporal treasure.”

“Forced reincarnations? Like a curse? How would that affect me if she sets up shop inside my body?” Zac frowned.

“It’s not a curse,” Lova said. “And the treasure has already become part of her body, it can’t affect others. Believe me, people have tried. Many have wanted to extract some of Esmeralda’s endless longevity and take it for themselves. Part of the reason she’s currently staying in the Perennial Vastness is to avoid being captured again.”

“You’re pretty crazy, eating something like that,” Zac said to the toad, who responded with a smug look that said, ‘Worked out in the end, didn’t it?’

Zac would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted. Even if she’d lost most of her memories and skills, she had a wealth of experience to draw on. The skills of a world-renowned thief would be incredible when looking for treasures and avoiding dangers.

“Will she even be able to enter if she’s so ancient?” Zac asked.

A smile spread across Lova’s lips upon hearing Zac’s question. After all, it was a partial agreement. “She should. This Esmeralda is only three years old. And don’t worry. As I said, she’ll rapidly grow over the next few years. She should be at Middle Hegemony by the time the inheritance starts. She still won’t be able to fight the other contestants, but she will not drag you down.”

Three years? Zac gave Esmeralda a second look, now noticing small differences in the patterns on her skin. Esmeralda released a puff of familiar Dao in response: his own.

“The kid?” Zac blurted, and Esmeralda nodded with a grin.

“The pillar’s sudden ascent came as a surprise to us as well,” Lova sighed. “Esmeralda’s reincarnation cycle was at an unfortunate state, so she sacrificed her cultivation to birth a second incantation early. This way, she’ll be ten when she enters the Left Imperial Palace. It’s not optimal, but someone like Esmeralda will have to be careful about the restrictions. Better safe than sorry.”

“Do you think others will do the same?” Zac asked. “Bringing reincarnators or something similar?”

“Of course,” Lova laughed. “This is one of the biggest events in recent memory. I don’t know about reincarnators, but everyone involved is currently wracking their brains to figure out ways to gain an edge over the competition.”

Zac’s expression fell upon hearing that. It was bad enough being pitted against centennials from the peak factions of the Multiverse. If they also brought a bunch of cheats, how would he and his followers survive?

“The Multiverse was never fair,” Lova said. “But you shouldn’t worry overly much about that aspect. The System is giving this matter an almost shocking level of attention, and it’s already indicated it won’t accept any foul play. You won’t encounter things like what happened inside the Stand of Saeward. The rule on age includes a series of hidden restrictions that even the strongest will have to work within. To break those rules would be to declare war against the Heavens.”

Zac shuddered at that thought, remembering the words of Sendor and Engo. The Thrones, the Seals, the Terminus Council, and the war for the direction of the Era. It almost felt like the hidden masters of the Perennial Vastness were holding their breath, just waiting for all hell to break loose. Sendor had assured Vastermal of his neutrality, but that could also mean he had his own plans and ideas.

Silence stretched, and Even Esmeralda seemed subdued by the heavy topic. Lova sighed and shook her head, taking out an Information Crystal.

“I’m sorry. These are not matters you need to worry about. Just focus on yourself and your goals while following your heart. I’ve outlined the proposed terms of cooperation here. It would be a binding contract enforced by teacher and the System itself, should you accept. Neither you nor Esmeralda can renege after it’s signed.”

A quick scan confirmed it was a contract enforced under the ruleset of the Apostate of Order, and it was quite generous. Zac’s only obligation was to provide passage into the trial. Meanwhile, Esmeralda had to do her best to help Zac accomplish his goals inside the Left Imperial Palace, even after she attained her goals.

There was one problem, though. Esmeralda’s goals were identical to the Undead Empire’s. Was there a conflict there?

Zac frowned. “There might be a problem considering the specific treasure Esmeralda needs. I already have a similar agreement in place. If there’s only one—”

“Nine,” Lova said. “There should be nine utmost treasures beyond the true inheritance. Like the Heavens, the pillars were constructed following the rule of eight by nine. The one is the Eternal Heritages at their core, and the nine bound it to the Limitless Empire’s purpose.”

“Still, Esmeralda is cultivating Death, and…” Zac hesitated.

“You can see this as a small payment from me for helping my old friend,” Lova said. “I can somewhat guess what’s going on. The agreement you have is no doubt with the Undead Empire. It makes sense they wouldn’t dare aim for the grand prize. Their aim, if I had to guess, is the core of the Hollow Court. Esmeralda doesn’t want that item, so there’s no conflict.”

“How do you know that?” Zac asked.

“Not many would have the answer, but the followers of the Perennial Vastness are awarded unique insight.” Lova smiled. “Master has been around for a long, long time. He was even consulted on the grand undertaking back then and recorded some of the details.”

Zac raptly listened, afraid to miss a single word or inflection in case it was an important detail.

“The reason I can say with good authority that the Undead Empire is targeting the Hollow Court is that they were the ones who helped build it.”

“What? How’s that possible?” Zac said. “They didn’t even exist back then.”

“The ancient era was a different time. The star of the Limitless Empire was almost blinding, like an insatiable beast, consuming everything in its path. They had accumulated strength far beyond what you can imagine. Even today, nothing comes close. The emperor and his trusted generals traveled the dimensions, seizing one powerful treasure after another and slaying everything that had staked a claim on the Dao.

“Some were powerful enough to resist their conquest for a while. But the Empire’s expansion could only be delayed, never halted. Even the greatest beings were forced to compromise. The Primo was one of them. He was forced to pay a painful price in return for the emperor looking the other way and turning his blade in another direction.”

Zac could barely believe what he was hearing. The very same Primo that ruled today lived before the System? No wonder he’d never heard any murmurs of the four Divine Races trying to seize control over the Founders. Messing with that kind of old monster was to ask for trouble.

“Looking the other way?” Zac frowned. “What does that mean?”

“The Dao is eternal, but the Heavens are neither inexhaustible nor incorruptible. Simply existing for someone at that level is bound to become a hindrance to the aspirations of others.”

Zac had already learned that peak beings impacted the Dao and what it meant. The struggle between the Buddhist Sangha and the Apostate of Mercy exemplified that. Zac didn’t know what made Laondio change from the idealistic alchemist in his Bloodline Vision to the ruthless conqueror he was known as today, but Zac could imagine his thoughts.

The Primo was undoubtedly the most powerful cultivator on the path of Death, possibly the most powerful cultivator of the Peak of Chaos. If Laondio killed him, a good chunk of the Heavens would be freed up.

“I don’t know exactly what the Primo was forced to leave behind in exchange for peace, but it was extremely important to him. The events now are a chance for him to take it back, to become whole.”

Zac’s heart shuddered, feeling like he’d learned something he wasn’t supposed to. Who knew? It was possible that not even Tavza or Kator knew the truth of their mission.

Making the Primo whole, what did that mean? A raw powerup, or could it be related to his work with the Heart of the Empire? From what he’d gathered, the Undead Empire still didn’t have full control of that Death-attuned Eternal Heritage, even after all these years. Could the item in the Hollow Court be the key for the Primo furthering his control over the Heart?

A personal powerup of their strongest combatant, and possibly being able to extract more benefits out of an Eternal Heritage based on the Dao of Death. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that not even the Ultom Courts could compare to that kind of benefit, and it didn’t even come with the risk of seizing a second Eternal Heritage. No wonder the Primo was willing to pay almost any price to enlist his help, going so far as to draft an unprecedented mandate to win him over.

Still, that knowledge made the pressure on him mount. Until now, he’d just planned to give his mission with the Undead Empire a halfhearted try before packing it in. But with such a personal stake for the Primo, would Zac dare slack off?

64

LOOSE STRINGS

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” Zac asked rather than mull over the implications of the Primo and his connection to the Hollow Court.

Lova was proving to know more about the upcoming event than anyone he’d met before, except possibly Perala Janodrok. However, the Void Priestess had her own considerations and couldn’t divulge too much.

“I’ve already bent the rules of what’s permissible by sharing this,” Lova rejected, dashing Zac’s hopes for further clarity. “And I have no answers to give except old anecdotes found in the corners of our library. Besides, knowing too much is not necessarily a good thing. It might fill your mind with unnecessary thoughts when you’ve entered the trial. Suffice it to say, Esmeralda is looking for something else, and you’re not even required to help her seize it.”

Which was another point that made Zac hesitate. The agreement was incredibly lopsided, and in his favor. For example, half of anything Esmeralda snatched on her own would go to him, while he didn’t have to share anything he helped extract. She wasn’t obligated to fight by his side, but that was fine, considering she wasn’t a combat beast.

“I’ve said what needs to be said,” Lova said as a portal sprung up beside her. “Feel free to talk things over among yourselves. If you want my opinion, you should accept. However, please don’t feel any obligation on my or Esmeralda’s accounts. This is an offer of cooperation, not an order. We’ll look for someone else if you’re unwilling to bring Esmeralda.”

“Wait!” Zac said as Lova made to leave.

“Hm?” she said curiously.

Her gaze was gentle, but Zac’s heart still beat with trepidation as he remembered her offhanded mention of slaughtering a bunch of monks. Still, this was a rare opportunity, and he had a pressing issue he couldn’t solve on his own.

“You’ve spied on me for a while, and now you want me to help your friend sneak into an Eternal Heritage. I’m grateful for the information about the Undead Empire, but one could argue you told me that to make sure I agreed,” Zac said, ignoring the chill that appeared in Lova’s eyes. “You’ve been spying on Valsa as well, right? You knew she would summon the emperor, yet looked the other way. It doesn’t seem right. It’s not balanced.”

“And what would you say is needed to balance the scales?” Lova asked. The warmth in her voice was still there, but her smile gave Zac the chills.

“Valsa might have had accomplices, other people in here who know the identities and details of my friends and me,” Zac said. “Seeing how motivated the imperials are, I’m afraid they’ll stop at nothing in an attempt to extract that information. If my cooperation with Esmeralda is to succeed, I need some assurances—”

“You should know that extracting anything tangible is nigh-impossible even for a Supremacy. This is not just empty faith in my teacher. The System itself is a guarantor for the rules put in place for the Cosmic Gallery. Vastermal’s attempt was an act of desperation, and you shouldn’t worry too much about such an eventuality.”

“Still,” Zac said, unable to trust this stranger’s words for such an important matter.

Even if she was gentle and courteous despite their vastly different strengths, she clearly had an agenda.

Lova wordlessly looked at Zac for a few seconds. “The invasion of such a powerful consciousness can easily create dangerous turbulence in the realms used for the Cosmic Gallery. To ensure no one is hurt, we’ll disable the ability to leave the Perennial Vastness for two weeks. Everyone will have to visit Vastness City to reset their bracelets at a Temporal Obelisk by the teleportation square.

“As for who knows your identity… Your new companion knows that better than me.”

Zac breathed out in relief upon hearing the decree. Lova was probably right in her assertation, but this was still a hidden danger that needed to be dealt with before Zac could truly feel safe. Vastermal’s descent had been something of a wake-up call.

He’d always known the powerful factions from the Heartlands were aiming for the Left Imperial Palace, but it had felt distant. Like the struggles between the Supremacies were kept apart from the competition between the younger generation. That feeling had been reinforced by the System sealing Zecia. He should have realized that didn’t mean squat when it came to such important matters.

Lova stepped through the portal the next moment, and Zac thoughtfully looked on as the gate closed. He wasn’t so naïve to believe her only goal in this meeting was to act as an interpreter for Esmeralda. When those kinds of people made a move, it generally involved their benefits or cultivation. The level of obsession that pushed you to Autarchy and beyond wasn’t something you just turned off.

Did she want to drive a wedge between himself and the Undead Empire by divulging dangerous secrets? Or was she perhaps helping the Primo? After all, Zac now felt a far greater pressure to make sure the mission succeeded. She seemed to have a conflict with the Sangha. Was this an ‘enemy of my enemy’ type of thing? It would explain why she used such a flaky excuse not to share anything beyond the details of the Hollow Court.

Zac shook his head and turned back to the toad. He ultimately had no way to tell what was going on. However, Lova had one thing right: he could only follow his instincts as he worked toward his goals. Everything else was out of his hands.

“Do you really know who’s exposed my connection to the pillar?” Zac asked.

Esmeralda eagerly nodded and made a series of signs.

“Not a single one escaped your notice?” Zac said. “Who are they?”

Esmeralda snickered, pointedly looking at the contract crystal in Zac’s hand. Zac glared at the toad, but she won the staring contest. Filled with helplessness, he resumed his inspection of the old parchment and the agreement.

Lova said he shouldn’t feel pressured and that they could always find someone else. But that on its own was a threat. After all, Esmeralda knew his identity, and Zac sincerely doubted Lova or this toad were bound by the same restrictions as normal guests. Now, they even held hostage the identities of potential informants while adding a deadline.

It made him warier about the whole thing, even if the underhanded method didn’t necessarily mean their offer wasn’t genuine. Esmeralda croaked with annoyance at the delay. She even produced an Information Crystal and waved it tantalizingly in front of his face.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that. I still have two weeks,” Zac snorted. “Didn’t you spy on me for years before you decided to approach me? Why can’t I take my time?”

Esmeralda stomped her foot and made some signs.

“Not the same?” Zac said with a raised brow. “I know. I’m doing things above-board while you snuck around in the shadows.”

Esmeralda responded by mimicking his words and expressions with a series of clearly sarcastic croaks. This creature was possibly the second oldest being he’d ever met after Sendor himself, but it was difficult to treat this oddball with that kind of deference. Whether it was her actions or weirdly human expressions, she felt more like a mischievous kid than anything else.

Of course, it might all be a guise to make him lower his guard. However, no matter how hard Zac looked, he couldn’t find anything amiss. The contract was quite generous, no matter how you looked at it. And while he couldn’t pierce the workings of the mysterious parchment of the Kanba, he felt what Lova said was mostly true.

The inherent instincts provided by years of bathing in the waters of the Lost Plane indicated it really was a very weak contract along with a spatial technique. He couldn’t sense anything like the hidden traps he’d run into before, like with the [Essence of the Abyss] or the array for the Twinned World Cores.

There was even a section guaranteeing the effects of the Enshrinement of Kanba, and Lova personally guaranteed the effects to the System. If something went wrong, she’d be severely punished. Still, getting a second pair of eyes on the contracts wouldn’t hurt.

“Is everything okay?” Catheya asked as she stepped inside, looking at Esmeralda with surprise. “This toa—ahem, Esmeralda, is still here?”

Esmeralda grinned and greeted Catheya with a wave. Catheya returned the greeting before turning to Zac, her face full of questions.

“A lot of things have happened,” Zac exhaled. “The threat in the Stand of Saeward was related to that place. And the same goes for Esmeralda here. I could really use some advice.”

“Let’s call over your shadow, then,” Catheya said. “He’s a bit annoying, but his scheming mind is quite useful.”

Zac agreed, and Ogras stepped through the teleportation portal a few minutes later.

“Your mansion might be even worse than that frigid hellscape,” Ogras spat. “What’s going on? People are saying a treasure is about to be born in the Stand of Saeward, but you’re already back? And… what’s with the toad?”

Zac took a breath and brought them up to speed. Just like with Kruta, he skipped some details of his discussion with Sendor. He also didn’t mention the matter of the Primo and the Hollow Court, only stating their goals wouldn’t clash.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his girlfriend. They’d reached a tacit agreement that Zac wouldn’t talk about any schemes or plans that might go against the interests of the Undead Empire. That way, Catheya wouldn’t be put in an awkward position where she was stuck between him and her obligations to her clan and the Empire. Zac was also afraid he might trigger some secret safeguards in the imperial commandments if he divulged the Primo’s secrets.

Ogras took the news of his battle with Valsa in stride, and Catheya only shook her head with helplessness. They had long since grown accustomed to his uncanny ability to attract trouble. They also read the agreement and investigated the parchment, but neither found any pitfalls within. Even K’Rav made an appearance, but he wasn’t very helpful.

He was far more interested in the technique for research purposes, bringing up the prospect of fusing the enshrinement with Ogras’s Body Tempering Method. You’d turn the shrines into cages and set up a whole prison in your body. Each cage would house a beast, where you extracted benefits from hundreds of prisoners. Though each captive beast would only provide a fraction of the benefit compared to the creatures Ogras sealed the normal way, the method would effectively be replacing quality with quantity.

Esmeralda couldn’t listen anymore and lashed out with her tongue at the goblin. Zac gave the demon a pointed look, and Ogras sprung to action.

“Bastard, thinking of such nefarious things! Senior Esmeralda has brought us such a marvelous plan, and you want to tarnish it with your wicked and unorthodox ideas?” Ogras swore, his face a mask of righteousness. “Back with you, right now! Don’t let me see your face for the next week!”

Esmeralda was startled by the outburst, looking quite pleased. K’Rav only snickered as he flew back into the demon’s sleeve. Esmeralda might have bought the act, but Zac and K’Rav recognized the greedy gleam in Ogras’s eyes as he glanced at the old parchment.

“So, what do you think?” Zac asked. “You’ve been busy,” Ogras said with a shake of his head. “I guess it was about time you created a mess. You’ve been too quiet for the past two years. At least it’s mostly good news this time.”

“I can’t believe a Supremacy acted so desperately to tip the scales in their favor,” Catheya muttered. “Makes me wonder if the Undead Empire has more plans beyond what we’ve already seen.”

Esmeralda laughed, clearly indicating her thoughts on the matter. Zac had to agree after learning the true nature of the Primo’s goals. It wasn’t a matter of if but a matter of what. Zac wouldn’t even be surprised if his involvement and the mission given to Tavza and Kator were just backup plans. The Primo was getting that treasure one way or another, even if he had to turn the whole frontier upside down.

“Let’s put the matters of those imperials aside for now,” Ogras said, and Zac groaned when he saw the gleam in the demon’s eyes.

Ogras was looking at Esmeralda like she was an unparalleled beauty, or perhaps a mountain of treasures. He could have been an official standing by their emperor’s side. Judging by his ingratiating smile, he was only one step away from taking out a fan and tray of fruits.

“An expert explorer wants to join our camp, and we don’t even need to provide a seal? What’s the problem? Don’t keep Senior Esmeralda waiting. Hurry up and sign it.”

Esmeralda grinned widely at Ogras’ stamp of approval and even patted his shoulder while giving him a croak full of assurance.

“Then I’ll be under your care, Senior Esmeralda,” Ogras said with a smile. “With you at the helm, we can rest easy. How can a trial for some juniors stump an erudite master such as yourself?”

Esmeralda was looking more and more pleased by the second.

“Should have known,” Catheya snorted, but she didn’t dissent. “I also think it’s for the best. We undeniably lack experience, and the terms are quite good. I don’t think the Undead Empire would have any objections.”

“I guess that’s it, then,” Zac said, looking at the toad. “Welcome aboard.”

Esmeralda huffed like it was about time he came to his senses. Both signed the agreement, and Esmeralda handed over the Information Crystal. Zac briefly scanned its contents before throwing the crystal over to Ogras.

Zac was about to infuse his energy into the Enshrinement of Kanba, but Esmeralda stopped him.

“What’s wrong?”

Esmeralda made a series of signs, and Zac soon snorted in exasperation.

“There’s no point in creating the shrine right now? You’ll come find me in Zecia before the event starts?” Zac said. “Were you just trying to trick me before?”

Esmeralda looked back at him innocently, and he decided not to push the matter. “Whatever, suit yourself.”

He also preferred not to use the method right away, even if Lova said it wouldn’t affect him. It would give him more time to make sure it was safe. The best thing would be getting Iz to take a look at it, though he didn’t want to always come running to her with problems. Besides, he didn’t want another subspace inside his body, further complicating things when forming his Cosmic Core.

“Wait!” Zac said just as Esmeralda was about to leave, making the toad look over curiously.

“Can you help me with this?” Zac asked as he took out Valsa’s ring.

Esmeralda’s eyes sharpened as she looked at the ring, and the odd vats on her back started churning. A hint of antiquity spread through the room, but the feeling disappeared after a few seconds. The toad slowly nodded, making a few signs.

“Three years?” Zac asked, hesitating a bit before agreeing.

Esmeralda’s tongue flashed, and the ring disappeared from his hand. Zac looked on with confusion as Esmeralda literally swallowed it. He was about to ask what the hell she was doing when he spotted a glimmer on her back. The Spatial Ring had been moved to one of her vats, and complex runes appeared on the translucent membrane. Was it a natural array breaker?

Zac glanced at Catheya and Ogras, who just shook their heads, indicating they also had no idea what was happening.

“Remember, I got that thing on my own,” Zac added. “The items inside are mine. You can consider it a test for our upcoming partnership.”

Esmeralda made a sign that said she had no interest in some treasures of an E-grade brat. The toad was gone the next second, her movement technique not even leaving a ripple in her wake.

“You keep collecting weird things,” Ogras commented as he took out a bottle of wine.

“Like you’re one to talk,” Catheya laughed. “If it’s not ghosts, then it’s shadow creatures.”

“Well, we don’t all have powerful empires to help us out. We commoners have to get our hands dirty if we want a shot at the good life,” Ogras shrugged.

“Yeah, poor you,” Catheya said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Show me the imperial in our generation who wouldn’t get green with envy upon hearing all the lucky encounters you’ve stumbled onto since meeting Zac.”

“Alright, you two,” Zac groaned. “You guys keep bickering like an old married couple, I’m starting to get jealous.”

“Like he’d ever survive being married with that mouth,” Catheya muttered. “We have time to discuss all these issues, but I think we need to figure out what to do with Valsa’s subjects.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ogras said. “They need to die. I admit I don’t know the next thing about Supremacies, but I don’t feel comfortable trusting that the seals of the Perennial Vastness will keep us safe.”

“Honestly, I think the risk of someone like Lova exposing your identities is far greater than Supremacies breaking through the System’s seals to extract the information,” Catheya sighed.

“Agreed, but we can’t do anything to them,” Ogras shrugged. “The deathsworn is a nuisance we can deal with. If nothing else, it’ll help us in the short-run. We’re lucky no new batch of guests has arrived over the past week. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the Seven Heavens sent another princeling into the Perennial Vastness to recoup their losses. After all, they now know there’s a Flamebearer in here.”

Zac sighed upon hearing the demon echo his thoughts. That was exactly his worry and why he’d asked Lova for assistance. Sendor already said he wouldn’t bar the young generation from entering the Perennial Vastness. How would they be able to focus on their Core Formation if a constant stream of imperials came out of the woodwork?

“Killing the deathsworn won’t change that fact, but it will make their work harder. They’ve failed once and know we’re on guard. They’d have to make the second attempt count. I would be hesitant to launch an all-out strike unless I knew with certainty who to target and how Valsa failed the first time,” Catheya said.

“And if we kill all the helpers and destroy all evidence, they’d have to start from scratch,” Ogras added. “Not just the investigations, but echelons, non-public intelligence of zones. You name it. We could just stay in high-echelon zones for the rest of the gallery, and they wouldn’t be able to touch us.”

“Alright,” Catheya said as she took the Information Crystal from Ogras. “You two stay here, I’ll deal with it. It’s time those ‘helpers’ of ours put some work in.”

65

GETTING STRONGER

Neither Zac nor Ogras were surprised Catheya chose to take on this bloody mission. She was simply the best suited for it.

“There are nine names, and there’s even fourth-echelon cultivators among them,” Ogras commented. “Dealing with them will be… Expensive.”

Zac grimaced at the thought. He remembered his encounter coming to Catheya’s aid just after entering the Perennial Vastness. He’d lost over 500 Mana killing the leader. Wiping out the whole group inside Vastness City would levy extraordinary fines on the killers. And it was easier said than done to lure them into a Red Zone.

“Valsa struck me as someone who’d rather sacrifice all her deathsworn to empower herself than leave safeguards for others. I can’t believe so many people remain,” Zac said.

“She probably would have if their strength were up to snuff,” Ogras agreed.

“It doesn’t matter,” Catheya said. “It’s exactly for this type of thing they sent reinforcements.”

In this case, ‘they’ referred to the Undead Empire. The Eternal Clan siblings he met back then had already left the Perennial Vastness, but over a dozen new undead had cropped up over the past years. Two had just stumbled upon tokens, but the rest were sent with an explicit mission to shore up their position inside the trial.

Oddly enough, not one of those entering was a member of the Divine Races. They were all Revenants, Spectrals, and Corpselords, seemingly from completely different parts of the Undead Empire. What they had in common was incredible strength, easily surpassing the average guest. Zac had once found them highly suspicious, even suspecting they were part of the hidden threat.

Now that the threat was gone, the reinforcements came in handy.

“Make sure there’s no trail leading back to you,” Zac said. “People will be talking about this for a while.”

“Don’t worry,” Catheya smiled. “You two just don’t go creating any more problems before I’ve cleaned up this mess, right?”

Catheya left, and Ogras turned to Zac. “So, you got another sealbearer. You think he can be trusted?”

“I think so.”

“Still, having his seal wakened was a mistake. He’s a far bigger threat than those people on the toad’s list. What if he gets greedy upon his return? The knowledge he holds is worth a lot of money, and he doesn’t need you anymore.”

“Kruta would never do that willingly,” Zac said. “If anything, he’ll keep our secrets out of self-preservation. He knows how these Imperial Clans act. If word gets out about his seal, his whole tribe will get implicated. They’d extract all knowledge before killing him to move the seal onto one of their own.”

“Fine,” Ogras sighed. “I doubt you’re willing to kill him even if we found the opportunity.”

“Of course not,” Zac glared.

“Then we’ll just have to see where the pieces fall,” Ogras said. “At least you’ve completed your cycle now. That’s one problem dealt with. By the way, did the brute really gain an epiphany? Your girl said that wasn’t the case.”

“The seal was thrumming with that weird energy,” Zac confirmed. “Maybe it’s because it was from the Indomitable Court?”

“Either that or it’s Fate,” Ogras said. “You have to admit, that particular court is perfect for him. He’s also connected to you, the walking seal magnet. He has far more affinity to the Left Imperial Palace than some random guy who’s killed a sealbearer.”

“Affinity,” Zac muttered. “That might be it.”

It made sense if you looked at it from a suitability perspective. If the deathsworn had held a seal of the Daedalian Court like Ventus, such a pairing wouldn’t have been suitable.

“Guess we’ll find out during the war,” Ogras said. “It’s good news for us, at least. Means we might be able to gain epiphanies even if we find our final pieces inside the bodies of the Kan’Tanu.”

“That is good news,” Zac said. “Unfortunately, I have some bad news as well.”

Zac explained the connection between the Primo and the Hollow Court. The demon didn’t have Catheya’s conflict of interest and needed to know, especially when what would happen during the trial was up in the air. What if Ogras appeared inside the Hollow Court and consumed whatever treasure was within?

“Nine treasures, and my court’s ultimate prize just had to belong to an old monster who’s still around? What kind of greedy bastard sticks around that long? Just pack it in and let us youngsters live our lives,” Ogras swore, his face scrunching up. “Did you siphon off all my luck? Is that what this is?”

“Hey, you’re not under a contract,” Zac smiled. “Feel free to go for it.”

“And have some undying monstrosity breathe down my neck for the rest of my days?” Ogras spat. “I’d rather marry a Barghest. Still, it might be an opportunity. If those undead imperial hotshots get turned around, and we get the thing on our own…”

“We’d have an undying monstrosity owing us a huge Karmic debt,” Zac concluded.

Ogras leaned back into the sofa. “Well, this is all premature. There are a lot of roadblocks to pass before talking about bartering with the Primo, these deathsworn being the most immediate issue. Are the undead up to the task?”

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Zac said. “Our forces are greater, and we have the element of surprise on our side.”

Zac was soon proven right. Twenty minutes later, news of a shocking event spread through Vastness City. The Undead Empire had gone mad and attacked a smithy, killing everyone within. Eight people died, two of them from the Undead Empire. One Revenant had been expelled from the Perennial Vastness after landing three of the killing blows and running out of Mana.

The news barely had time to land before a second piece of explosive news dropped in the form of a global message. One from the Perennial Vastness itself. Lova had held up her part of the bargain. The Perennial Vastness was sealed for two weeks, and a large obelisk humming with Temporal Energy had appeared next to teleportation square.

The timing was perfect, to the point Zac guessed it was intentional. If Lova had sent out the message right after leaving, the six deathsworn would’ve likely left the smithy or gone underground. Now, they caught most of their targets in one go.

One day later, two more warriors were executed by undead death squads, and on the thirteenth day, a hooded man was killed as he appeared on the teleportation square. His death allowed Zac and the others to breathe out in relief, as his was the last name on the hit list.

A few days later, Esmeralda showed up and spat out a Spatial Ring. Zac first thought she’d unlocked Valsa’s ring grossly ahead of time, except it wasn’t the same one. Say what you want about Esmeralda, she was thorough. The toad had uprooted hidden depositories left behind by Valsa and her followers. The ring contained both coded and uncoded Information Crystals. Some were about himself, but his heart shuddered upon finding detailed accounts of both Catheya and Ogras.

There was also quite a bit of information about various Red Zones, insider info only the larger coalitions would hold. A surprising amount of the intelligence covered zones Zac recognized, zones well suited to his Daos. Valsa had probably felt it too risky to follow him into one of the random environments while he hunted for treasures of the seventeen Dao Peaks, and instead opted to research regions he’d eventually visit.

It was just a coincidence the showdown took place in the Stand of Saeward. Similarly, there were reports for zones suitable for Ogras and Catheya, though those missives were far less detailed. The meticulous plans and data left Zac’s back slick with sweat. Thank the Heavens he had his early warning system. He might have been in trouble if things played out just slightly differently.

Now, the wealth of information turned into a useful tool. He still had some treasures to pick up for his Omnitool, and the next step was to grind Mana as quickly and efficiently as possible. The reports would help out a lot. After all, raw strength often wasn’t enough to accomplish the missions in the Red Zones. You also needed to figure out tricks or hidden rules to reap the maximum rewards.

With that, all the safehouses were plundered, and those with damaging intelligence were slain. If the Empire sent new people to investigate, the clues would point to the Undead Empire rather than him personally. It wasn’t the best of disguises considering his Draugr persona was quite well known, but it was better than nothing.

“So, what now?” Catheya asked as the trio reconvened.

Five days had passed since the last name on the hitlist had been struck, and things were calming down. An unusually large batch of arrivals had appeared two days prior. These newcomers had been stuck in the waiting room where Zac first met Null until the lockdown ended. The job of dealing with agents of the First Heaven had been pushed onto the Undead Empire, and so far, none of the newcomers appeared suspicious.

“The same thing we’ve been doing,” Zac said. “Gather Mana and opportunities so we can break through.”

“Good,” Ogras said, springing to his feet. “Feels like I’ve been stuck in house arrest. We’re heading out.”

“We?” Zac asked.

“Not you,” Ogras said, then turned to Catheya. “The goblin has calculated another event. Should be a good one, and a lot of people are still busy trying to break into the empty vaults in the Stand of Saeward.”

Zac looked over with interest, only to be met with two tepid stares.

“Don’t even think about it,” Ogras spat. “Who knows what kind of catastrophe you’ll attract? Let us make some money in peace. Go play somewhere else.”

“You better stay out of our way.” Catheya laughed then kissed his cheek. “See you in a bit.”

They were gone the next second, leaving Zac alone in his mansion.

“Whatever,” Zac muttered as he walked into his study. “I guess I can sit one out.”

Truth be told, he didn’t mind. He had a lot on his plate, and his short stint in the Stand of Saeward added a significant boost of Mana. He’d killed fifteen people in his battle with Valsa, adding 3,000 Mana in those few hours. Then on his way out, he’d killed one and defeated three, cementing having earned more than most months, even without a quest to supplement his income.

Zac spent the next hour standing in front of the huge simulation array, his mind churning as he looked at the intricate paths of his blueprint. At a nearby desk, he took out a stack of notes covered with various thoughts, ideas, and plans he’d come up with since he started studying his blueprint in earnest, along with the [Warstone].

Hours turned to days while Zac studied every aspect of the Conflict-attuned Supreme treasure, using everything he’d learned during his blueprint studies and the insights awarded from [Cosmic Forge]. Its energy signature was analyzed, as were the truths locked within, and new pages were added to the stack one after another.

Other treasures joined the [Warstone]: the [Void Engine], the [Calamity Core], and even the [Hollow Core]. Zac studied what happened when their auras interacted, and he breathed in relief. The items couldn’t be considered perfectly compatible, but they had no irreconcilable clashes. In other words, he’d gathered all the materials he needed.

His blueprint was also ready, having received some upgrades over the past years. Almost nothing was left on his checklist. His breakthrough was drawing closer, and even his momentum stirred, pushing him forward.

He still had some things to accomplish inside the Perennial Vastness. There was also the process itself to worry about. He’d already come up with a general idea on how to form his Cosmic Core when inventing his blueprint, but even Ultom hadn’t been able to provide him with an exact solution.

After all, he hadn’t known what materials would be used for the nucleus back then. Zac couldn’t just cram these items together inside the [Hollow Core] and hope for the best. He needed to consider their specific properties and the best way to extract, refine, and fuse them. That was the only way he’d create anything better than a Low-quality core. The only way he’d form a core at all, really.

Finding [Cosmic Forge] had opened his eyes to all kinds of new possibilities, and he would be a fool not to take those into account. He wasn’t planning on using the technique on his Cosmic Core, but how it fused the essence of different materials was absolutely ingenious.

The biggest problem for mortals when it came to Core Formation, was the need for a large number of treasures and materials to use as a foundation. It made the cores heterogenous and poisoned them with external Daos. Just like infusing Cosmic Cycles into equipment with [Cosmic Forge], you had to ensure the fodder fit. Picking the wrong essences or fusing them in the wrong order prevented you from adding more than a couple of layers to a piece of equipment.

That was well and fine when practicing on a training axe. He couldn’t be so flippant when it came to his core. The cost of failure was either death or a broken core. With a foundation as heavy as his own, Zac feared it’d be the former. The amount of energy in the treasures he’d use was enough to blow him up ten times over. And even if he survived, there was no way he’d be able to make another attempt in time for Ultom.

There were various techniques to alleviate the issue of incompatibility and heterogeneity. Still, it was generally a huge problem for mortals to progress through the ranks in the D-grade with their mottled cores. Galvarion, the mortal Monarch, had tackled the issue by only focusing on the Dao of Water and remaining as weak as possible for his grade. The smaller and more condensed the foundation, the fewer treasures Galvarion needed to use. That allowed him to arduously make his way through Hegemony and eventually form an Inner World.

That obviously wasn’t an option for Zac, forcing him to figure out various methods to solve the problem. Even then, the results weren’t optimal, and the Core Formation process was fraught with danger and risk. Luckily, the theories within [Cosmic Forge] allowed him to improve various aspects of the process, removing some dangers while creating a better product.

With his materials secured, an actual plan was finally starting to form. It was a marvelous feeling. Perhaps it was the Mana-powered domain, perhaps it was thanks to being able to visualize the end of this long project. A decade of hard work was fast crystallizing into a personalized primer for Core Formation, and time lost all meaning.

Until a specific message dragged him out of his reverie. Zac blinked and looked around, seeing the thousands of pages strewn about. Three full months had passed, where Zac hadn’t left his mansion once, not even to look for free Mana through duels. But the message he’d just received wasn’t one he could ignore, so Zac freshened up and activated the teleporter.

“You’re leaving already?” Zac asked as he emerged atop a huge skull.

“No point in sticking around any longer,” Kruta grinned. “Kruta’s foundations are as stable as mother earth. The eighth echelon is enough for me. The Stand of Saeward was already meant to be my last mission, and I walked away with more than I could ever dream of. The epiphany even allowed me to fix some issues with my ancestral link.”

“Still, one year in here is just one month on the outside,” Zac said.

“I’ve exhausted my potential in the E-grade,” Kruta shrugged. “One extra month on the outside as a Hegemon will be more useful than one year in my current state here. Besides, I might enter another Time Chamber to gain the levels I lack for the upcoming trial. The less time I spend in here, the better. I need to get a whole lot stronger and quickly.”

“I know the feeling,” Zac sighed. “I know it all too well.”

66

FANTASY

Kruta’s decision made sense. There was no point in sticking around when the opportunities had dried up. Even breaking through early made sense in some cases, where you traded perfection for momentum.

“I’ll do my best to come over,” Kruta said, his eyes gleaming with ferocity. “I’ll show those heart curse cultivators what’s what.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Zac laughed.

They set up a line of communication in case Kruta managed to reach Zecia, similar to his relay with Catheya. Kruta also provided Zac with a teleportation token that would take him to his tribe, though it would only work while on the Ralphi Continent. He’d also gathered all the intelligence he could remember of the Seven Heavens onto an Information Crystal.

Unfortunately, besides general knowledge, Kruta didn’t have much intelligence about the other Heavens. He knew a bit more about the fourth, which the Luaris Dynasty controlled. The barbarian did share some rumors that people generally didn’t dare speak about loudly.

For one, Zac had long known that one of the Imperial Dynasties had already fallen. The Dianthis Dynasty that once controlled the Third Heaven. It happened soon after the Imperial Clans reemerged after the System awoke. According to Kruta, there were many indications that the Third Heaven had been invaded by all the other families.

Too much time had passed, and outsiders had no way of knowing the details, but the general belief was that it was related to the Limitless Empire. The seven clans had looted the inheritance of their masters in the chaotic aftermath of the System’s birth, before hiding in secluded corners of the Multiverse during the Dark Ages.

When they emerged, they created the Seven Heavens and set themselves up as the Imperial Dynasties that stood to this day. Perhaps the Dianthis Clan had managed to get something too tantalizing from the vaults of the Limitless Empire. Some even believed it was the Dianthis Clan who seized the method to create the Heavens.

If that were the case, the betrayal made some sense. The Heavens were the foundation of the Imperial Clans’ influence and might. If one of the seven held the key to creating more Heavens or even destroying those of the others, the Imperial Clans would always have a threat looming over their heads.

The Dianthis Dynasty was essentially strangled in its infancy, and there simply was no Third Heaven. The Seventh, Tobrial Dynasty’s Heaven and his foremost competition in the upcoming trial, could also be considered the Sixth. Kruta had no idea why they retained their current numbering, though.

The fate of the Third Heaven was just an interesting tidbit. More useful was the information about the dynamics of the remaining six. On the outside, they seemed like a powerful and solid alliance, where the imperials stood as one against outside pressures. Eons of intermarriage between the dynasties had kept their families close.

In reality, turbulent currents hid beneath the calm surface. According to Kruta, the First Heaven had essentially become the informal leader of the six after they gained a sudden burst of power in the distant past. He and Kruta now realized it was likely related to the First Heaven seizing the second pillar when it emerged.

Since then, there had been a hidden struggle for dominance. The Second Heaven was reportedly under the Planur Dynasty’s thumb, and the goal of the first was to improve their position even further. Perhaps to even turn the other five into outright subjects. Of course, the other Heavens weren’t just going to let that happen. An outright war would weaken both sides too much, but hidden struggles for resources and power remained a constant.

The Fifth Pillar was a chance for the other Heavens to gain an Eternal Heritage of their own. Zac could only imagine what would happen if a faction got its hands on Ultom and managed to extract that amazing energy from within. No wonder the First Heaven tried everything to get Ultom for themselves, with Vastermal going so far as to break into the Perennial Vastness.

Perhaps they could use that information to their advantage in the future.

Zac stayed for another two hours, not to plan or scheme, but to have a feast.

“My friend, meeting you here was my greatest fortune,” Kruta said as he shook Zac’s hand in goodbye. “We’ll see each other soon.”

“Likewise. Take care,” Zac nodded. “Don’t force it if you can’t reach the frontier. Don’t let the imperials find you.”

Zac emerged from Kruta’s storefront, sending out a message as he set course for the teleportation square. Since he’d emerged from seclusion, he might as well knock another goal off his list. Zac stopped in a secluded street not far from the square, and he only needed to wait ten minutes before the shadows stirred.

“The brute is gone?” Ogras asked as he stepped out of the darkness.

“Well, secluded anyway,” Zac said. “Don’t know why you were so against meeting with him. It would have been good for our cooperation to go through a mission together.”

“There’ll be time for that if he manages to reach Zecia,” Ogras said. “Until then, I felt it best if some of us kept a distance. With his mouth unsealed, there’s just no way of telling what’ll happen.”

“I know, I know, I’m a big-mouthed fool,” Zac said with a roll of his eyes.

“And we all suffer for it,” Ogras said with a melodramatic expression, though his face soon lit up. “You ready to put in some work?”

“Let’s go,” Zac said. “I’m curious to see what kind of nightmare you plan to cram into your body.”

“You know what? I’m actually not that curious,” Zac muttered as his axe tore through a bend in reality.

Ogras glanced over in time to see a powerful wave of Dao shred the anomaly, and an eerie laugh echoed through the region before reality stabilized. Gone was the twisted face spewing out nightmares, now replaced with some shrubbery. The action would only delay the inevitable. The world was stirring, and the ambient energies were rising fast. They only had an hour at best before a great reset swept through the area.

“Eight hours, and you already want to pack it in?” Ogras grinned, though he was merely trying to hide his own unease.

Even as someone who treads the line between real and imaginary, this realm was decidedly unsettling. It wasn’t natural, walking inside the dream of an unknown creature. A creature that possibly wasn’t even alive, going by how warped and unstable the dream had become. It felt like they could get twisted and bent from a moment’s carelessness. Or worse, what if the creature woke up?

Would it turn its dream, and them with it, into a figment of its imagination? They had little choice. The Shifting Dreamgeist was the most suitable beast Ogras could find after scouring hundreds of scrolls and intelligence reports. Meanwhile, Zac needed something from the Peak of Fantasy for his weird hammer. Win-win, provided you survive.

“You sure about this?” Zac asked as he kept enforcing his Dao to quell the surging surroundings.

“The missives were clear,” Ogras grunted as he extended his shadow network through the ground. “If we don’t anchor ourselves for the dream shifts, then we’ll get dragged Heavens know where. Could be the beginning, could be one of the unstable regions. But this shouldn’t be too bad. You should be able to tide things over with your Mana and Dao alone this far from the center.”

“That doesn’t mean you can slack off,” Zac commented.

“I know,” Ogras said. “Just you watch as I bend this world to my will.”

Time was running out, so Ogras stopped his shadow tendrils when they’d stretched three hundred meters in every direction. It was for the best, he already felt himself growing hollow. It was sometimes easy to forget that the shadows weren’t a bloodline ability or something that could be fueled with Cosmic Energy.

The shadows were his actual body, thanks to getting Asshole fused with his body and then practicing the [Spiritlock Physique]. He only had so many shadows to go around, and he couldn’t accumulate more beyond a certain point. Still, three hundred meters should be more than enough to create a safe harbor in the upcoming storm.

His Branch of the False Truth spread through his tendrils, anchoring the world to his vision. Ogras shut out all distractions as he pictured the scene, and he his Dao slowly formed a resonance with the surroundings. Minutes passed, then it came like a tidal wave.

Ogras’ mind was assaulted by hundreds of foreign impressions, and the mental world he’d crafted distorted from the influence. Though not to a point where he couldn’t fight back. Ogras furiously quenched the unfamiliar images and stole their essence to stabilize his illusion. Every impression he subverted stabilized his own, and the resonance between Dao and world converged until they were one.

A minute passed and the dream shift was gone. Ogras could tell it was a success. The shift hadn’t managed to fuse their auras with the dreamworld, making it impossible to teleport them away. Ogras even managed to influence the dream and remold it to his liking, and he opened his eyes with anticipation. But the grin turned crooked.

What he imagined was mostly there, except the details were wrong. Decidedly wrong. He could have just stepped into his own nightmare, narrowly dodging toxic spittle from a scantily clad devil with a snake’s head.

“What the hell?” Zac swore as he found himself grappling with a courtesan’s empty silk dress.

Meanwhile, six dancing bottles released a toxic plume that rapidly filled the small chamber that had sprung up around them.

“Don’t breathe the perfume! Let’s go!” Ogras urged, and they crashed through a door.

On the other side, a mad feast was taking place with hundreds of guests. Nightmarish courtesans, faceless patrons, and animated tools of the four arts created a surreal atmosphere full of debauchery, joy, and horror. The wordless reproach in his companion’s eyes was palpable, and Ogras coughed as he started clearing a path toward what he hoped was the exit.

“Well, the information packages said the better you could envision the harbor, the stronger it would resist the dream shift,” Ogras explained. “And I spent a lot of time in the Fragrant Orchid Teahouse in my youth.”

“And how much time did you spend memorizing the interiors?” Zac countered as he peppered the aggressive patrons with a storm of fractal leaves. “Why does it seem like you wanted to see if you could dream up a harem?”

“Yeah, well. Now we know that doesn’t work,” Ogras said, unable to hide his disappointment. “Unless your tastes veer into the bizarre.”

“Things didn’t work out with that Hissa girl?” Zac commented.

“The lass from the Primal Council?” Ogras said. “They worked fine, but those brutes are so territorial. Some meatheads started grumbling, and she wanted me to fight them. Stake my claim, prove myself, you know? Too much of a headache.”

“And now you’re resorting to creating a literal dream-girl? Using a brothel as a model?” Zac sighed.

“Genius, right?” Ogras laughed as he shredded the final nightmare courtesan blocking their path.

“Whatever, let’s go.”

Unfortunately, more chambers and distorted guests waited on the other side of the screen door. After ten minutes of fighting their way out of the bizarro teahouse, the two mutely looked on as it dissipated soon after they emerged. The dream would always revert to its natural state without outside influence powering and reinforcing the change.

“No more teahouses,” Zac muttered as he turned toward the dream’s center.

“Fine,” Ogras shrugged. “Though I doubt my other harbors will be much better.”

Four days passed, and the dream and its denizens grew increasingly intense. Ogras even began pitying the creature whose mind they’d entered. What kind of life had it led to be haunted by so many nightmares in its sleep? He’d lost count of the number of odd creatures they’d fought, how many insidious death zones they’d dismantled or avoided.

Ogras hated that almost nothing was real. He’d never realized what a great source of comfort the gift of the Ruthless Heaven was, the surge of energy that confirmed your enemy was well and truly dead. Certainly, there were many ways to enact revenge upon your killer from beyond the grave—life-linked arrays, Karmic trails that would allow your clan to find the perpetrator, and so on.

That was far preferable to not knowing whether you destroyed a dream denizen. Their bizarre appearances and abilities didn’t help either, and many could reform. Ogras’s nerves were constantly frayed, never knowing what was dangerous or safe.

The few dream residents who formed a true soul were a great solace. Feeling that Kill Energy’s surety when your spear pierced their heads didn’t just confirm they were real. They reminded Ogras himself that he was as well. It came to the point he actively sought out anything possessing spirituality, turning into a reaper who destroyed the native motes of reality to fuel his own.

Still, the pressure mounted, and Ogras couldn’t take it. He glared at his companion as he methodically destroyed a flock of teethy balls of fur.

“How are you so damn calm?”

“Huh?” Zac said, looking over with that dull look of his.

“This place,” Ogras waved with exasperation. “How is it not stressing you out? My nerves are on fire and I’m losing my mind!”

“Really?” Zac said. “It’s not too bad compared to some of the other zones I’ve visited. These dream beasts are on the weaker side, and I have you to deal with the shifts. We’ve eradicated the imperials, and the others are afraid to mess with us after the rampage inside Vastness City. I think things are pretty good right now.”

“Why does it feel like you’re cursing us when you say things like that?” Ogras muttered. “Asking for trouble.”

His composure was aggravating, but Ogras had to admit the man had a point. The Undead Empire had become scapegoat and shield, and guests took a wide berth around Zac and his girl when they appeared. No one wanted to be the next one to appear on the Undead Empire’s hit list. Even the powerful coalitions opted to look the other way after the Undead Empire confirmed it was a matter between two warring factions.

Why get involved in that kind of mess?

Ogras continued until he noticed Zac had stopped. Did he have something more to say? Or was it…? Ogras shuddered and prepared for the worst. Had this fate-touched bastard really brought down a Calamity on their heads with his words? He should have known better than to taunt the Heavens.

No sudden dream shift swept through the region, and no horror popped out to make their life miserable. Zac was simply staring off with a small frown. Ogras glanced in the same direction, but there was nothing there. Apart from the rippling opalescent clouds that made up the ground and sky, there was just a small pond and a couple of trees.

As far as the Shifting Dream went, it was quite calm. Too calm, perhaps?

“What are you looking at?” Ogras asked with confusion.

“I… think we should go in that direction,” Zac said, distractedly fiddling with his invisible beads.

Ogras laboriously held back a sour comment, opting for magnanimity over jealousy, even if that uncanny Luck was enough to ruin one’s day. He had to focus on the positive. They were in his world now, and there was a good chance anything the Heavens threw Zac’s way would end up in his pocket.

Veering off their original course, they moved by instinct. Both used every tool in their arsenal to find anything of interest. It took ten minutes, but then it finally paid off.

“Hmm,” Ogras said, vaguely sensing odd ripples from far off.

It was minute, to the point he wouldn’t have given it a second look if not for his buddy’s uncanny nose for treasure. But as things stood, it was worth investigating.

“Do you see something?” Zac asked.

“Might be nothing,” Ogras said, hating the sense of defeat that had snuck into his voice.

“Let’s go,” Zac grinned.

Two hours later, Ogras blankly looked on as his buddy gleefully infused a shimmering wooden figurine into his hammer. He’d been the one almost driven mad unraveling the illusory layers protecting the thing, yet there wasn’t even a stalk of grass he could use inside. He should have known the Heavens wouldn’t steer its chosen one off-course for the sake of someone else.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Zac said with that infuriating smile. “All the Fossilized Dreams for the quest will go to you. And isn’t there that creature as well?”

Ogras slowly exhaled, steadying his mental state. “You’re right. You’re right. There’s still the Dreamgeist.”

Continuing into the realm, they soon reached depths neither would have reached alone. Zac would never have managed to stop the shifts, and he would never have been able to withstand the nightmarish onslaught that followed. Every figment was at the D-grade. They’d even sensed a Late D-grade aura.

They soon managed to unearth one quest target after another. They were odd anomalies, dreams that had failed to form spirituality yet had become more than an illusion. Instead, they’d turned into rocklike formations that contained dense deposits of the Dao of Dreams. They couldn’t quite be considered Natural Treasures, but they held far greater truths than Dream Crystals. And there were quite a few of them.

They spent two full weeks in the heart of the dream, fighting dozens of waves of beings brought from the depths of Ogras’s mind and then twisted by the dream. Then, they finally found what they were looking for. What he was looking for, anyway. Hiding far in the distance to ensure they weren’t discovered, Ogras’s cheeks burned as Zac slowly turned to him. He studiously avoided meeting Zac’s gaze, but he could guess the kind of thoughts they held.

“That’s… That’s the thing you want to fuse with?”

67

KARMIC DEBT

“Well…” Ogras said, his voice trailing off as his perfect plan suddenly felt in need of revision.

Zac’s voice held an unmistakable mix of disbelief and mirth, and Ogras couldn’t blame him. The description of the Shifting Dreamgeist had painted a vivid picture, yet it paled to the real thing.

The Dreamgeist was only one meter tall, looking like an incredibly fat floating baby. A baby born from the unholy union of an ogre and a de-feathered rooster, with three tentacles instead of stubby legs. The thing had thin purple eyes whose pupils moved independently of each other as it took in the surroundings, and a wide, flat beak that seemed perpetually locked in a brainless smile.

No feathers or scales adorned it. Rather, it seemed born from the clouds that made up most of the Dream Shift. Except the clouds were more condensed, like they’d been crammed into a container too small a size. Its whole body shuddered and rippled like it would erupt at any moment. Altogether, it looked one part ugly and two parts stupid—a far cry from the intimidating creatures Ogras had first considered for the next layer of the [Spiritlock Physique].

“Won’t you turn into that thing if you fight?” Zac said, looking at him askance.

“Not necessarily,” Ogras coughed. “I can choose which aspects I use when activating the lock. Besides, I don’t want this thing for its appearance. I want it for the affinities and Bloodline Talent. I walk the path of the Illusory Shade, but my affinity to the Peak of Fantasy will hold me back unless something changes.

“The two beasts provided by master drastically improved my affinity to Shadows, and the Dreamgeist’s bloodline is far greater than both. Its Bloodline Talent is also a perfect match to my flag. Who cares what it looks like?”

Ogras normally wasn’t one to share the details of his path, but what could he do? This odd bastard would ruin his good name if he didn’t clarify things. A little bit of pillow talk and that obsidian-eyed vixen would have ammunition for the next couple of years.

“If you say so,” Zac said, clearly holding back a laugh.

“Whatever,” Ogras spat. “Just help me deal with its minions, and I’ll do the rest. Be careful not to harm it.”

That bastard Rez hiding in the Towers of Myriad Dao obviously had a plan with his soul-grafting experiment, even if his execution had been laughably crude. The Umbra had been an assassin, and he’d picked creatures useful for his own craft. The planeswalker was a shadow elemental who excelled at moving unseen. Its enemies were dead before they had a chance to realize someone was targeting them from the shadows.

The Umbric Recluse was a silent hunter, using shadows to bind and weaken their enemies. The moment its prey stepped out of the sun’s protective rays, they were already doomed. Its unique shadow manipulation allowed an assassin to force an opening without so much as a Cosmic Energy ripple that could be exposed.

Both were useful, and things worked out well in the end. Although, that was no thanks to his dear master, who never intended to leave a true inheritance. To do so would potentially have exposed his techniques, and a paid dagger couldn’t have that. So, the Towers of Myriad Dao was filled with random things he’d picked up, along with a few mad ideas he never dared try on himself.

Ogras had no plans to come knocking at that bastard’s door again. Rez had nothing of use, and Ogras wasn’t interested in his teachings. If Ogras ever stepped into the Umbra’s domain, it would be to snuff out the soul remnant for the same reason there was no true inheritance. Couldn’t have some unreliable soul remnant know his secrets.

Either way, it was time for him to pave his own path.

He’d already acquired a new Cultivation Manual to replace the [Grey World Mudra] in exchange for 2 C-grade Nexus Coins and a supreme material he got with the numerology book. It could take him much further, and it better accommodated his new broader path. There were only two problems with it, apart from not having been fully tuned to his path just yet.

The first was its exceedingly high requirements when it came to affinity. He passed the mark when it came to the Dao of Shadows, but his illusory affinity was not yet up to par. This Dreamgeist should solve that problem in one fell swoop.

The other problem was trickier. Altering the method to suit his unique constitution. But he had already made good headway in that department. The manual should already be workable, providing greater cultivation speeds, multipliers, and energy circulation than [Grey World Mudra]. Any kinks he failed to work out could just be fixed with the final piece of his seal. Ogras could see his path widening, and the Shifting Dreamgeist was the key.

Suddenly, it didn’t seem so ugly. It was almost a bit cute.

“Come here, you little rascal,” Ogras grinned as a pulse shook the proverbial spirit lock hidden in his chest.

Pain wracked Ogras’s body as it was remolded into an avatar based on his Ka’Zur Planeswalker and the Umbric Recluse. He hated this part, but it was hard to say no to the extra attributes the transformation provided.

The Dreamgeist shrieked upon spotting intruders, and a powerful purple glow radiated from its previously unfocused eyes. Its body faded, but the world suddenly turned black. A deathly swirl closed off the region while a pillar that elicited a primal dread rose from the ground. It was a good reminder. Most of the time, Zac seemed like an above-board and straightforward guy. Then he went and created something twisted like this. The guy had range.

The cage slowed the Dreamgeist’s shift but failed to cancel it. It was enough time for two shadowy tendrils to slap it away, leaving binding marks on its body. That was enough to tether the beast to the region, which the Dreamgeist realized. The whole cage flickered as hundreds of beasts appeared, each with a Hegemon’s strength.

Ogras didn’t bother with those things. The pillar behind him was already sending out a net of chains. The captured minions could shift in and out of reality after having been reforged by the Dreamgeist, but it was enough to keep them busy. Zac was in the thick of it, chains and blades dancing around him as he contained the beast tide.

Leaving the Dreamgeist exposed. Its ability to capture beasts and turn them into illusory dreams under its control was terrifying, but its own combat ability wasn’t anything special. With his buddy paving the path, the beast was ripe for the plucking.

“You can only blame yourself for being too talented. Who asked you to toy with a whole coalition on your own?”

“I give,” Thea panted, her heart full of reluctance.

“Don’t look so glum. You’re making great strides on your technique,” Amanthi said as he removed his staff from her shoulder.

“Not enough to leave even a cut on your kasaya,” Thea muttered as the two flew down to the ground.

“You’re just a kid, and it takes time to build a temple that can withstand the test of the ages,” Amanthi smiled. “Besides, your variegated background left you with gaps that needed to be mended. You will improve even quicker now that you’ve found a more cohesive plan and some proper techniques.”

Thea nodded. She had to admit the Sangha was treating her exceedingly well in her position as a ‘guide.’ The number of resources provided for her cultivation was nothing short of shocking, and she was allowed to peruse the enormous repository in the spacefaring pagoda freely. Body Tempering, Soul Strengthening, Intent Molding, all kinds of magical methods and skills she didn’t know existed.

All hers for the taking, should she desire them.

It felt generous to the point it was beyond suspicious, and she hadn’t dared touch anything for over a month. Thea still felt the whole situation surreal, but she had long since caved when it came to helping herself to the various amenities. There was obviously something weird going on, but she was just Thea Marshall, a random Early Hegemon with decent talent.

If the Buddhist Sangha wanted to deal with her, they easily could have. She’d seen them turn an unrepentant Monarch into a devout nun. What resistance could she possibly put up? And there wasn’t much else to do on the ship than cultivate. Her ‘job’ barely took up any of her time, and if she had to listen to another debate on the Dharma between those insufferable monks, she’d go mad.

She couldn’t believe these people could spend weeks discussing things like the Karmic relationship between a stalk of grass and a raindrop. Amanthi was one of the few people not driving her up the walls. As a Dharmic Guardian, his role seemed more like that of an elite soldier than a spiritual cultivator.

A bell tolled, and Thea looked up with a frown. It was time.

“Just get it over with,” Amanthi said.

“Why not just tell me what that thing is?”

“It’s out of my hands,” Amanthi said. “I’m just here to swing my staff around. You’ll have to convince the little arhats.”

Thea grumbled as they walked to the top level of the multistoried pagoda. It was fifty meters across, and the myriad stars of the cosmos were on full display above. Sixteen young monks and nuns were already sitting around the golden array in the middle. A few looked over with kind smiles. Most ignored her existence, fully consumed by intoning one scripture or another, having closed off their surroundings.

“Benefactor, we hope you can light up the path once more,” a nun said as Thea walked over.

Thea looked at the golden array that hummed with vigor. It exuded mysterious ripples, like it held the universe within. Thea couldn’t stop a pang of desire as she looked at the intricate patterns. That feeling of stepping onto the array was indescribable. Of being connected to all creation, one with the cosmos. But it was a false sensation, and she was filled with greater reluctance every time she was brought back to reality.

She didn’t know why, but today was the day. Years had passed, and she’d finally reached her limit.

“No,” Thea slowly said.

Her volume was low, but it felt like her rejection shook the whole hall. The silent chanting stopped, and sixteen pairs of eyes locked onto her.

“No?” the nun repeated, looking up at her with confusion.

“No, I won’t,” Thea said, taking a step back. “I’m not stepping into that thing again until you tell me what’s going on. This weird cult shit has gone on long enough.”

“I assure you the array is perfectly safe,” Amanthi said from the side with a troubled look.

“I don’t care. You people are way too suspicious. Why me? I know I’m not anyone special. I’m weaker than everyone here,” Thea said, glaring at her sparring partner. “The only thing I can come up with is my background. My home planet, my—”

Thea stopped in her tracks. She couldn’t call him her partner anymore. Over a decade had passed, and he thought she was dead.

“My loved ones,” Thea continued. “I’m not stepping onto this goddamned thing again until I get some answers!”

“Benefactor’s train of thought has merit,” an unfamiliar voice echoed through the halls. “But it is but a part of the tapestry.”

“You!” Thea said, her eyes wide with shock at the new arrival.

“This poor monk didn’t expect fate to bring him back to this region so soon,” Abbot Everlasting Peace smiled.

“Well, it’s safe to return now that Zac ran himself ragged to deal with the mess you left behind,” Thea glared.

The abbot gave no rebuttal and only turned to the youthful monk sitting at the central position. His name was Crystallized Enlightenment, and the de-facto leader of his group as far as Thea could tell. She didn’t know much about him, though. He never joined the debates or made any move to converse with her. His aura felt as vast as an ocean, bottomless and unfathomable. Just the thought of fighting him filled Thea with despair.

“This is not what we agreed upon,” Sacred Insight said, his voice seemingly coming from both the future and the past.

A small frown of displeasure appeared on his usually impassive face, and she felt a weak pull like reality was being twisted. Dread attempted to consume her when a calming wind swept away the sensation of doom. It had only lasted a moment, but Thea’s back was already slick with sweat.

“You said you wouldn’t impede the search.”

“This poor monk believes he is aiding it. Forcing fate will only steer us toward a sea of regret,” Everlasting Peace said.

“Your attachment to your past life is an anchor,” Sacred Insight said. “Karma binds you, clouds your judgement. The Dharma will forever elude you unless you free yourself.”

“If this poor monk had severed Karma, he wouldn’t be standing here,” Everlasting Peace smiled. “That is not my path. Whatever Karma I create, be it good or evil, I shall bear to the end.”

“Eh, why not just tell her?” Amanthi added from behind, his calm voice cutting through the tension. “Might even improve the outcome.”

Sacred Insight said nothing, staring at Thea before closing his eyes. Thea’s heart beat in excitement. It felt like acquiescence.

“Benefactor, follow me,” Everlasting Peace smiled.

“What’s going on?” Thea asked after they entered a side chamber. “You’re back? Why?”

“This poor monk was truly supposed to cut ties with Zecia. But great events are taking place, and fate brought me back,” Abbot Everlasting Peace said. “Our mission is one piece of the puzzle.”

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

The monk smiled and formed a mudra. A golden sigil appeared before him, and Thea gasped as hundreds of threads sprung from her body. Some were thick, others were so thin they were barely visible. A few filled her with dread and hatred, others warmth and longing. The latter mostly pointed in the same direction, stretching impossibly far.

It didn’t take long to figure out they were her Karmic Threads, the intangible links to those who’d crossed her path over the years.

“Just as benefactor guessed, this all relates to that young man,” Abbot Everlasting Peace nodded. “The Super Brother Man. Zachary Atwood, the ruler of the Atwood Empire.”

“Atwood Empire?” Thea muttered with disbelief, a small smile spreading across her lips.

She could almost picture Zac’s reluctant and anxious expression as he was pushed higher and higher on the multiversal hierarchy. Was he still grumbling about all the missives that kept appearing on his doorsteps? Did he still sneak into the wilderness just to swing his axe around for a few days?

“How is he doing?” Thea asked. “Is he okay?”

“That man is a shining beacon of providence,” Abbott Everlasting Peace said. “He has advanced by leaps and bounds, surviving great tribulations. He’s ushered in an era of prosperity for Earth while steadily advancing on his path.”

Thea took a steadying breath. He was okay. Her thoughts were a confused mess. Earth had seemed so distant since she stepped foot on the Goldblade Continent. Now, it all came crashing back, and she found herself overwhelmed by longing.

“That young man triggered the whole chain of events that made the Dharma stir,” Abbott Everlasting Peace continued, shaking his head like he still couldn’t believe it. “That’s what brought us to you.”

Just like she thought.

“So those monks appearing before me on the Goldblade Continent wasn’t a coincidence, huh?” Thea said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Few things are coincidence. Fate and Karma binds us all,” Everlasting Peace smiled. “In fact, my master had met benefactor Atwood shortly before meeting yourself.”

“Your master?” Thea said, remembering Zac’s description of Lord 84th. “I don’t think I’ve met him?”

“This poor monk is referring to His Eminence Three Virtues,” the monk explained.

Thea’s heart shuddered at the name. The scene of that chubby little monk dominating the Hallowed Mother still lived on in her mind. He could have squashed her like a bug if he’d wanted to. Yet, her most vivid memory was Three Virtues’ shifty expression as he stole her treasures, all while talking about Fate bringing them together. So that weirdo was Everlasting Peace’s new master.

“Benefactor Atwood is like a stone dropped in a tranquil pond,” the abbot continued. “His actions have created ripples of fate. For most, they are just that. Ripples. But with the right tools, with the right people, they can become a map.”

“A map to what?” Thea asked.

“It is a long story.”

“I have nothing but time.”

The abbot smiled and began unraveling the truth of the meandering journey she’d been on for years. These monks weren’t so free as to simply gallivant around in space for fun, but the truth far exceeded her wildest dreams. Eight pillars of the System and Eternal Heritages from previous realities.

The Left Imperial Palace, nine outer courts. A trial for the younger generation, where the winner would be able to help their faction seize the main prize.

“And Zac triggered all that?” Thea asked with disbelief.

“His fate is like a mighty river,” Abbot Everlasting Peace nodded.

“And how do I fit into all that?”

“You have an immensely powerful Karmic Link to him,” Everlasting Peace said. “And there’s Karmic debt.”

“He doesn’t owe me anything,” Thea said. “What happened between us was out of his hands.”

“He doesn’t feel that way,” the abbot said. “Karma is a tricky thing. Perception can greatly affect its nature. He believes he is responsible for your fate, and thus Karma is sown.”

Thea sighed. She could guess the thoughts running through his mind. Seeing his mother do something like that… It had to mess with your head. To carry that on your shoulders for years… She still couldn’t believe Leandra Atwood could be so callous. Poor Kenzie, being stuck with that lunatic.

“The Boundless Sea Array allows you to use that link to harmonize with his fate. Benefactor Atwood is the originator of the event. Thus, he has some fate with every seal released into the cosmos. We use that fact to pick up some pieces before they’re dragged toward Zecia.”

“So you’re using my Karmic Link to steal Zac’s opportunities?” Thea frowned.

“Not at all,” Abbot Everlasting Peace rejected. “Hundreds of seals have been released, and our young friend is only fated for a fraction. Any more would do more harm than good. How many from our old home can withstand an event like this?”

That was obviously not the full truth. The monks weren’t doing this out of benevolence. They wanted the Eternal Heritage, so they were doing everything possible to snatch as many tickets as possible. Though she admitted the monk was right. What could some earthlings accomplish if ancient factions were entering the fray, sending their most powerful centennials?

Even if Zac managed to provide the best opportunities and resources, so what? How could the frontier compare to the Heartlands? She’d seen how vastly superior the Goldblade Continent was, and that was just a C-grade continent outside the System’s purview.

The people of Earth hadn’t even cultivated for two decades and were supposed to compete with people who’ve cultivated for over eighty? Going against people like Sacred Insight? Even Zac would be in trouble. The thought alone made her sick with worry, and her thoughts rapidly spun.

“You’re talking like you’re trying to help, but you’re just trying to sneak in the backdoor. Using me as the key,” Thea concluded, looking at the abbot with an even stare. “Looks like nothing has changed. You guys really are a shameless bunch.”

“We assure you we have no designs on benefactor Atwood. If anything, we have a good relationship. Furthermore, using the Boundless Fate Array leaves us with great Karmic debt to benefactor Atwood. To even out Karma, the Sangha will do its utmost in protecting him and his people inside,” Everlasting Peace said. “The more people miss can guide into the trial, the better his position will be.”

Thea tried to discern what was true and false on the abbot’s face, but it was just as inscrutable as with all the other monks. Minutes passed, and Thea reached a conclusion.

“I can continue to help you. But I won’t step into that array until you agree with two of my conditions,” Thea said. “One, every single one of you will swear a Dharmic oath in front of me that you will not target Zac or his followers.”

“It will be done,” Everlasting Peace said, and Thea felt he even looked quite happy with the proclamation.

“Secondly, I am getting one of those seals.”

68

GLORIOUS RETURN

A small needlepoint of green lit up in the distance, and Kruta sighed in relief upon the journey finally coming to an end. Traveling inside the Perennial Vastness Token’s claustrophobic bubble hadn’t been any better this time around. It was like a coffin, and the oppressive darkness of the Void didn’t make things any better.

Kruta’s heart sang upon seeing the emerald vortex grow larger, and he could almost smell the rustling grass of home. He was finally back, and a grin spread across his face from the anticipation. He could picture his grandma’s shocked look when he told her about the Left Imperial Palace and how he’d heroically seized a slot, bringing honor and glory to the ancestors.

Even the old shamans hidden in the depths of the Ancestral Valley would probably emerge when they heard the news. Being invited to the elder’s council was almost a foregone conclusion.

“Wait…” Kruta muttered, his eyes gleaming.

What if something happened to him? He was such fine stock, yet he would soon enter an incredibly dangerous threat without an heir carrying his blood. Perhaps he should petition the elders to move up some of his marriages… It was only right.

Kruta shot through the gate, and he groaned with contentment as he felt the soil’s pulse beneath his feet. He was finally whole again and smiled upon feeling the spirit thread’s gentle caress. Kruta pitied those who couldn’t hear the voice of the world. The people he’d met in the Perennial Vastness would never understand the beauty of the steppes, where the ground was filled with the forefathers’ love.

The token had dropped him off right where he set off, in front of his grandmother’s tent. He stood unmoving, taking in the sounds, smells, and sights of the tribe. It had been so long. Before spending nine years in the Perennial Vastness, he’d never left the steppes for more than a few weeks at a time.

Part of Kruta wanted to make the rounds and visit all the people he hadn’t seen for almost a decade. But it would have to wait. The news he brought home was too explosive. Kruta stepped into the tent but was surprised to find a barrier blocking his entry. Since when did his grandmother keep her door closed?

Kruta went to the small drum beside the entrance. He infused his full cultivation base into his fist and slammed it with all the force he could muster. The hide didn’t release so much as a whimper, but a gong would alert his grandma of an urgent issue.

Even then, nothing happened after minutes of waiting. Kruta’s brows scrunched together. There was no way she hadn’t noticed his return. He was bringing back earthshattering information, yet Balka Greenleaf couldn’t be bothered to see him? A few more minutes passed, and the veins on Kruta’s forehead twisted as the grand tale he’d woven of his exploits were stuck in his throat.

It was unbearable, and one punch after another crashed into the drum, the attacks fueled by fate and frustration.

“What’s that ruckus!” an infuriated roar shook the sky.

Kruta’s expression fell at the outburst. Was Grandma in a foul mood? Was the Dancing Blade Tribe causing trouble again? Shouldn’t be. It had only been eleven months on the outside since he left. It was also impossible she’d entered seclusion. Balka would have removed the drum if that were the case. Kruta was no longer in any mood to enter, and the open flaps to the tents seemed like a ferocious beast.

He didn’t get the chance to retreat before someone emerged, and Kruta frowned at the stranger. The dense swirl of ancestral will around him proved he was of the tribe, but Kruta had never seen him before in his life. Of course, that wasn’t anything odd considering the vast domain they controlled, but he had come out of Balka’s private tent.

“Oh, it’s you?” the buff man grunted as he emerged. “You’re back already?”

“Who’re you?” Kruta asked.

“Fiesty brat,” the man grinned. “I’m Udro, but you can call me Grandpa.”

“You’re one of Grandma’s husbands?” Kruta ventured, getting an affirmative nod.

“Been guarding the Mystra Destolates the past couple of centuries. Just got back last week,” Udro said. “Heard the missus adopted a kid while I was gone. Well, she heard you loud and clear. Go on in.”

“Wait,” Kruta said, his eyes widening in comprehension as he saw the bleeding scratches on Udro’s chest and the mix of annoyance and relief in his eyes. “I’ll just come back later. Uh, have fun.”

“You little shit, you’re trying to ruin your gammy’s good time and then just run off?” a rough voice echoed from within the tent. “Come, let me take a look at you.”

“Good luck,” Udro grinned as he took out a flagon of spirits.

Kruta inwardly cried, but he didn’t dare ignore the order. The last time he’d interrupted his adoptive grandmother’s time with one of her husbands, he’d been sent to oversee the mating season of their warthog hordes. Kruta shuddered at the memory—the squeals still haunted his dreams. Then again, trying to hide from Balka another time had led to him being sent into the Kussak Dreadmines for a month.

Taking a deep breath, Kruta stepped inside. The surroundings blurred, and he found himself inside the huge trophy valley of Balka Redleaf’s world tent. Everything looked the same. The towering peaks of the surrounding mountain range greeted his arrival. Of course, they were the remains of the Primordial Beast Balka slew to claim her seat as one of the seven Grand Elders at the Tribal Council.

The latent pressure of the sacrificial bones crashed into him, and he groaned as his vision started swimming. Vast amounts of energy poured into his body, and he was relieved to feel his channels easily withstand the pressure. The first time he had almost gotten killed. Now, it was just a bit painful. Kruta felt his grandmother pull him over, placing him in front of a roaring bonfire.

Not far away sat Balka, looking the same as always. A heroic warrior in the prime of her life, with her huge broadsword lying to the side. If not for the monstrous killing intent roiling off her body, you could have thought she was one of the young blade masters of Kruta’s generation.

“Not bad,” Balka nodded after a while. “In fact, pretty good. I can feel how your connection with my great-grandfather has grown much deeper. You are nurturing each other in a way I haven’t seen before. There’s no way you’d manage to figure that out on your own. I guess that place deserves its reputation.”

“It’s all thanks to Grandmother giving me the token,” Kruta said, remembering the steel in her voice before.

It didn’t help.

“Still, that’s no reason to bang on the gong so loudly.” Balka glared. “I haven’t seen my Udro for almost a century. Ruining our sweet reunion deserves some innovative punish—”

“News!” Kruta shouted, the squeals of rutting hogs burned into his mind urging him on. “I have super important news, earthshattering news! I couldn’t wait.”

“Oh?” Balka said with a raised brow. “Then let’s hear it.”

Kruta took a deep breath and recounted his experiences inside the Perennial Vastness. Seeing her impatient look, Kruta, unfortunately, had to skip the prepared parts detailing his accomplishments before meeting Zac. He’d save those tales for his little wives.

“You fool! You killed an imperial?” Balka wheezed when Kruta reached the point with Valsa. “Do you want to bring a Calamity onto our heads? How can you betray the ancestors like this!”

“Well, it was kind of my buddy who finished the job,” Kruta coughed. “I got knocked out within seconds. I just put my finger on the scales a bit.”

The excuse didn’t help him much. Waves of power crashed into him from Balka’s glare, threatening to disintegrate his body. What did the improved constitution of a Hegemon matter when faced with an Autarch’s wrath?

“Vastermal was rebuffed by the Perennial Vastness, and the confidentiality of the realm will keep my identity safe,” Kruta croaked. “That guy I mentioned even went and had all imperials killed. No one even knows I was involved.”

“What do you know? Nothing is absolute in this world. There is no such thing as a perfect seal and no secrets that can’t be excavated. Not even the Heavens are infallible.” Balka snorted, but she relented. “Well, it does seem like there’s nothing wrong with you, and I can’t find anything inside your body. But remember, don’t mention this to a single soul. You never know who’ll use that information for their own gain.”

Kruta quickly nodded.

“What audacity,” Balka sighed. “No wonder you wanted to see me immediately. We’ll have to keep our eyes out, but I think we are safe.”

“No, that wasn’t the important part,” Kruta said, his heart shuddering when the bonfire was almost extinguished from a burst of his grandmother’s killing intent.

“You better have some honey with that spice,” Balka said with a murderous smile. “I don’t think my heart can handle much more bad news.”

Kruta jumped into the next part of the story, adding some embellishments to protect his hide. No, to paint a clearer picture for his dear grandmother! Who’s to say there won’t be treasures that could become the tribe’s hidden reserves inside the Left Imperial Palace?

“Good, good, good!” Balka laughed, her demeanor completely different from before. “Bold and ambitious! That’s how my grandchild should act. Go, go! Get gammy something nice.”

“About the princess…” Kruta ventured.

“Who cares? It doesn’t matter! What, some junior got herself killed inside a trial? Things like that happen every day,” Balka said with a lazy wave. “That old goat, Vastermal, has working hips and over fifty wives. He’ll make new ones. So, what happened next?”

Seeing how well things were going, Kruta decided to add some more honey. It wasn’t about avoiding punishment, it was about having a positive outlook. And it wasn’t really a lie to say that friendship could blossom between him and the Tayn successor thanks to Zac. After all, Kruta was handsome and great company.

Why wouldn’t Iz Tayn want to become his friend?

“Friendship with the young princess of the Tayns?” Balka said, her smile growing even wider. “If you can pull that off, forget about the inheritance. Who’d dare mess with us when people learn we have such a backer? Even the Luaris Dynasty would have to treat us with respect. I knew I was right in adopting you. I really have an eye for things.”

Unfortunately, Balka barely had time to finish her sentence before a deep rumble shook the whole world tent. It felt like a Primordial God was using the steppes themselves as a drum, and Kruta’s eyes widened with horror. This wasn’t the sound of the audience drum he’d hit before. This was the Ancestral Wardrum crafted by the founding chieftain himself. A drum Kruta hoped he’d never have to hear in his lifetime.

“A Tribal Calamity?” Balka wheezed, angrily pointing at Kruta with fires burning in her eyes. “You troublemaker!”

“I—You said,” Kruta stuttered, but he got no further before he found his mouth sealed.

“I said nothing!” Balka glared, and they disappeared.

The next moment, the two floated far above the tribe. Kruta could see the citadel stretch out across the horizon, where one powerful aura after another rose to the sky. But what did it matter? Kruta could see the fear in his grandmother’s eyes as she looked up at the intruder. The steppes shivered at their mere presence, and the ancestral threads had dug deep into the ground.

The whole sky had been replaced by fire, stretching as far as Kruta could see. Their citadel held the families of over twenty million elite warriors, but it felt like a speck in front of this burning curtain. Inside the inferno were thousands of anguished faces, each the size of a city. They were indistinct and made of the flames, but were a darker, almost purple fire filled with resentment and despair. It looked like they were trying to break out only to be pushed back in.

A flash of light made Kruta look to his side, where he found two newcomers. One was the war chief of the whole tribe. The second was another of the Grand Elders and the chief earthly shaman, Prata Redleaf. The war chief looked up at the burning sky, his back giving off a desolate aura. There was no fight in his eyes, only defeat and sorrow.

“Is this the end of our tribe?” he sighed. “I have failed the ancestors.”

“Don’t worry, I have a solution!” Balka said, looking up at the hellscape with a heroic expression as her hair danced in the wind.

“You absolutely cannot attack!” the ancient shaman screamed in horror, going so far as to summon four ancestors to hold Balka back. “You fool, look at those flames! They are ratified by the Empyrean Throne! That’s the Thousandflame Galley. We might be able to save some of our tribe through diplomacy, but not if we anger the esteemed one inside.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Balka huffed, pushing the ancestral guardians toward the ground.

“I—Uh,” Kruta stuttered, his mind muddled with confusion.

How did they know? He’d just returned, and they hadn’t even sent out the message, yet one of Kolsara Tayn’s disciples had come knocking at their door. Had Zac somehow sent word back? No, that was impossible. He was still inside the Perennial Vastness. The Tayns must have figured things out some other way. Was it because of the seal he’d picked up?

Either case, it saved a lot of time and lessened the odds of his tribe’s involvement in this matter being exposed. At most, it would seem like he stumbled into a lucky opportunity but was captured before the tribe could report it to the Heavens. Not even the Imperial Dynasty could fault them for that, and the horrible reputation of the Tayns should keep the tribe safe.

Who’d dare target the family of someone the Tayns had “recruited”? There was no way the Heavens wanted that mess on their hands, especially not when an Eternal Heritage was up for grabs. They had enough enemies without adding that band of lunatics to the mix.

But why did it have to be her?

Only three direct disciples of the Empyrean Throne remained since she hadn’t taken any new pupils since the Extinction. All three were Supremacies and absolutely insane. Even Mohzius Tayn’s unhinged followers seemed measured in comparison.

The Thousandflame Eccentric had hunted her master’s enemies for over a million years after the Extinction. Anything Thousandflame Tayn felt responsible for her master’s predicament was targeted with utmost prejudice. Clans were eradicated down to the chickens and dogs, and their allies were decimated. The lands they once ruled were incinerated. Even today, whole sectors remained impassable deathtraps because of her Empyrean Sinflames.

Not even those with terrifying backers were spared. Anyone shielding her targets became targets themselves, and even Supremacies had sacrificed whole branches of their line to keep the Calamity at bay. Everyone who fought back was killed and stuffed into the terrifying warship above.

The rumors said that a thousand Autarchs had been killed to create the hull of the Thousandflame Galley. That was likely an exaggeration, but at least a few hundred had been thrown into the inferno. More terrifying were the Heavenly Territories of three Supremacies that had become the core of this warship.

The Multiverse had collectively breathed out in relief when the Three Scourges of the Empyrean Throne finally ran out of targets to kill. Since then, they hadn’t been seen very often, presumably having returned to the Empyrean Quadrant to cultivate or whatever old monsters did with their free time. Yet they still lived on in the collective psyche of the cosmos, an unseen threat hiding in the dark. And now one of them was here.

Kruta shook like a leaf. Thousands of faces were looking straight at him, boring into his soul. Why had he listened to that troublemaker? He should have rejected him outright! He should have said, ‘No, thank you! I don’t need a ride; I will see you inside the inheritance!’

Now it was too late.

Kruta looked at his grandmother with imploring eyes and found that she looked back at him with an extremely suspicious smile.

“My sweet Kruta, I’ve been thinking. Staying inside the safety of the tribe will harm your future. A true chieftain isn’t raised inside a tent. He is forged under the harsh sun of struggle! It’s time for you to make a name for yourself, just like I did in my youth,” she said as she put her hand on his shoulder.

Kruta was about to plead for mercy, but found himself unable to speak or move as Balka covered him in a layer of impenetrable energy. She leaned over, a tearful look in her eyes.

“Remember, if anyone asks, You’re Kruta the Great from the Dancing Blade Tribe, alright?”

Kruta wailed as he shot toward the sky like an arrow released from a bow. From the ground, he heard the final parting words of his grandmother.

“All yours, great mistress!” Followed by a much lower, “Hurry, you old toad, activate the barriers!”

“You old crone,” Kruta swore upon realizing he’d become a sacrificial offering. “I’ll remember this when I rule the steppes! Permanent hog duty! No, I’ll—AAAI!”

Kruta’s complaints turned into a high-pitch shriek as one of the faces descended with impossible speed to gobble him up.

69

DRIFTING SNOW

The islands looked like glimmering jewels, slowly bobbing about on the horizon. With the perpetual snowfall, they created an ethereal scenery. Of course, these small isles were actually the backs of huge beasts, transformed into death traps meant to capture and harvest the snow spirits. The Everfrost Titans were a type of Ice-attuned tortoise, but they shared quite a few similarities to some insectoid species.

Atop their shells were the islands, while a huge hive hid inside, which was where its descendants lived. The titans even birthed different types of creatures, only a scant few of which were true Everfrost Titans. Most were different types of helpers who took care of the titans’ every need, allowing them to stay in a torpid state where they communed with the Dao.

Between each titan was a sea of black pebbles, each emitting an intense chill. It was a shame almost all of these things were useless for cultivation. It was the environment that was magical, not the stones. Only a few pebbles managed to turn the icy Dao of this world into something permanent, but finding them was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Catheya sat unmoving, releasing her Dao while Miasma cycled through her body. Her thoughts were empty as she turned herself into a beacon of ice. The falling snow was changed as it entered her proximity, transformed into sharp ice holding the chill of death.

It was odd. Not the transformation of the Dao around her, but how the world reacted. It didn’t try to rebuff her, more like it wanted to commune. It was a fleeting sensation, coming and going. One moment, she was Catheya, and her Dao was the Dao. The next, she was the vast ocean, stretching toward infinity. Ancient, powerful, vast.

Eruptions occasionally rocked the island, but Catheya barely noticed. She was trying to make sense of the feeling. Initially, she feared she’d been led astray by the powerful Dao inside the Red Zone, prompting her to push toward the next stage of her Dao. That wasn’t the case. She’d long since sealed her mind from the distorted truths of the Temporal Chamber. This was something else, an opportunity.

She just needed to figure out the root of the sensation.

The island tilted as an incredible shockwave almost threw Catheya into the ocean. The outburst scared away whatever truth hid inside the area, and Catheya looked toward the inner regions of the island with helplessness. A minute later, Zac emerged, having transformed back to his Draugr form.

“That’s all of them,” Zac said as he stepped through the arrays. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Catheya realized her expression was a bit off and donned a smile. “More than okay. I think I just figured something out.”

“As long as you’re alright,” Zac said, handing over a sack. “Only two of them this time.”

“Thank you,” Catheya said and stowed away the quest item. “It’ll be a bit before the next one gets close enough. It must have fed recently. It hasn’t responded to my signal at all.”

These lumbering hives usually only drifted about on the pebble sea. If you waited around for two to get close enough on their own, you risked being stuck on the same island for days. The best way to speed up the process was to turn yourself into bait—broadcasting your Dao to make yourself look like a particularly tasty morsel.

If everything worked, it would make the Everfrost Titans curious and instinctively swim closer to investigate. Of course, the practice had borne a different kind of fruit today.

“Guess we’re taking a break, then,” Zac said as he took out a set of furniture, adding an environmental array to the dampening array.

The very breath of the titans created a deep hum that carried a hypnotic effect. It made the snow spirits lethargic as they dropped on the island, and it had a similar effect on cultivators. Even powerful warriors risked falling asleep without dampening arrays to counteract the hum. And that was a nap you likely wouldn’t awake from.

“This one was pretty stingy, so I had to use a lot of force. It shouldn’t be able to send out any more workers for a couple of days.”

“I heard,” Catheya laughed. “I thought you would finally sink one of these guys.”

“I can’t believe how deep their sleep is.” Zac smiled. “I cut into its back with [Arcadia’s Judgement], and it only stirred for a few seconds.”

“Seems almost impossible to wake them up as long as you stay out of the tunnels,” Catheya agreed. “I guess this zone would be too dangerous if it were any different.”

They talked for a while, then turned to their own matters. Zac continued going over his Core Formation Method while she tried to clear her head and recapture that feeling. But her thoughts weren’t as calm as her face let on, making it hard to enter a meditative state. The notes in Zac’s hands were a constant reminder of the inescapable reality they faced.

“How many left now?” Catheya asked, breaking the silence of the past half hour.

“Of what?” Zac said with confusion. “Mutated Chillhearts? As many as we can find.”

“No,” Catheya said, gazing at the sunset. “Things for your tool.”

“Oh,” Zac said. “Just two. This one and one from the Peak of Chaos.”

“Which you can get any time you want,” Catheya sighed, feeling a bit lost.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“You know… We’ve never talked about what we’ll do later. On the outside. We just keep skirting the subject. Three years have passed, and you’re getting ready to rush for the finish line.”

Zac froze. Catheya could tell he was about to play stupid again, but he surprised her by shaking his head.

“Then let’s talk about it,” Zac said.

“Are we kidding ourselves, playing house inside a Time Chamber?” Catheya asked, and it felt like the chill of the world crept into her heart. “Does our relationship have an expiration date?”

“I don’t—”

“How would it even work?” Catheya pressed, the words she’d held back over the past year spilling out of her like a broken dam. “You can’t even visit the Kavriel Province because someone might target you. And I’m constantly afraid I’ll be forced to act against you or hide things. I’m just a pawn.

“And even if everything works out, would it change anything? I can’t keep up. I’ve tried. I’ve tried so hard, but it feels like you’re getting further and further away. I’ve crushed both my and my family’s expectations of me, but so what? Most of my accomplishments are thanks to my leaning on you. The Abyssal Shores. The Left Imperial Palace. The Perennial Vastness. All of it.”

Catheya felt drained after unloading the misgivings in her heart.

“I don’t want to be a blip on your journey before you move on to bigger and better things,” she whispered. “But I can’t see this ending any other way.”

Catheya didn’t dare look him in the eyes. It felt like an eternity passed. Then, she felt a thick arm wrap around her and drag her closer.

“I keep worrying about the future as well,” Zac sighed. “I’ve been wracking my brains, but I don’t have any answers or solutions.”

“I’m sorry,” Catheya whispered as she leaned against Zac’s shoulder. “I wasn’t planning to—”

“I only know one thing: I’m not satisfied,” Zac interjected, and the determination in his words made Catheya shudder. “A few years with you isn’t enough. I want more. Centuries, millennia. I’ll do anything in my power to make that happen.”

Chill turned to warmth, and Catheya found herself unable to say anything. She just wanted to sit like this forever.

“I’m not satisfied either,” Catheya eventually said. “What do we do?”

“Well. We just need to get through the trial in three years,” Zac said. “After the Undead Empire has what it wants and some ancient faction has claimed the Eternal Heritage, my identity as a Flamebearer will be useless. It’ll give us the breathing room to figure these things out. Perhaps we can go to the Abyssal Shores?”

“It doesn’t change the fact that you’re progressing with terrifying speed,” Catheya said. “And I feel that the gap between us will only increase inside the Left Imperial Palace.”

“Then, continue to lean on me,” Zac said. “My accomplishments are not because I’m especially hard-working or talented. Part of it is dumb luck, and another is because people have helped me out or paved the way for me. You said many of your accomplishments are because of me. So what? That’s how it’s supposed to work.”

“Still, our fates—”

“The universe has its plans, but we make our own fate,” Zac said. “Only we can decide what this is and how it’ll end. Even if I would progress faster than you, who cares? It would allow me to protect you. And there’s no way the only successful couples out there are those whose cultivation level is at the same stage. What, it’s impossible for a Late-stage Hegemon to love a Monarch?”

Catheya took a steadying breath, her messy thoughts calming. That’s right. So what if he grew stronger than her? What was wrong with having a powerful partner to lean on? Couldn’t she live with his avatar inside his Inner World if his cultivation left hers behind? There were plenty of couples living that kind of lifestyle. With his dual races and mysterious ability to shield the Heavens, he could even bring her to the kind of regions she’d always dreamed of seeing.

“Besides, it’s not because of your strength I love you,” Zac added, a mischievous smile spreading across his face. “It’s because of your big—Ow!”

“Pervert,” Catheya huffed as she retracted the icicle from his side, but a small smile spread across her face as she straightened her back.

It felt like a knot in her heart had been undone, a weight on her shoulders lifted. He wasn’t satisfied. It wasn’t just a fling. She’d merely been influenced by his almost insane drive as he conquered one Red Zone after another, making her focus on their cultivation rather than their relationship.

Of course, that didn’t mean everything was solved. If nothing else, there was the issue of them being apart for years. They say that distance makes the heart grow fonder, but it also brings danger. Accomplished men never lacked women trying to sneak into their hearts and into their bedchambers. She trusted Zac, but she didn’t trust all the little skirts around him.

The biggest threat was obviously Iz Tayn. She had a terrifying background, and the bits and pieces she’d managed to extract from the demon indicated she was beautiful beyond compare. Her sheltered upbringing seemed to have left Iz naïve to the matters between men and women, but it was just a matter of time. What if that seed of friendship bloomed into something else?

Catheya would have to sear her image into her man’s mind, so all the temptations on the outside would only make him think of her, of their time together in this place.

She resumed her cultivation, releasing her Dao into the surroundings. It didn’t take long for that feeling to return. Catheya didn’t know what changed, but it was even closer. Clearer. And she didn’t reject it. Catheya opened her heart and let the world connect.

Vastness, power, and stability filled Catheya as her Dao resonated with the world. The falling snowflakes started to rotate, and their gentle swirl soon turned into a massive vortex that spread farther and farther. Soon, it covered the whole island, yet it hadn’t reached its limits. She could sweep through the whole world for a moment, but a painful sense of exhaustion prompted her to drag back her consciousness.

The connection was cut, yet Catheya felt she could reinstate it whenever she wanted. She looked up at the dissipating winds with interest, not caring that she’d just lost more than half her Miasma.

“What was that?” Zac said with shock. “Was that you?”

“Harmonization,” Catheya muttered to herself before turning to Zac with a grin. “You’re really my lucky charm. I really should repay you.”

Zac looked confused, but a smile spread across his face as he glanced at the titan far in the distance. “You said he’d just fed?”

“We have some time.”

Zac stepped through the gate, appearing on the teleportation square in his Draugr form. He couldn’t even remember the chill of the Everfrost Isles, only the heat. Catheya had always been passionate, but she had really gone all-out the past month. They’d spent two extra weeks inside the Red Zone, and he hadn’t even noticed.

“I need to enter seclusion,” Catheya hummed to the side.

“Ah?” Zac said, dragged out of his dreamlike state.

“Will you be okay on your own?” Catheya asked with a smile that spoke volumes.

“Maybe one more mission?” Zac ventured, his blood stirring at the thought.

Catheya playfully fiddled with his fingers as she leaned closer, but Zac froze when he only got a small peck. “Next time.”

Zac inwardly grumbled, but she needed to do this. Catheya had grasped a great opportunity, and it was time for her to figure out how to make the most of it. To think she’d suddenly learn the elusive ability of Earthly and Heavenly Harmonization. It was much rarer than intent or technique and generally considered impossible to train. Attaining harmonization was considered a matter of talent and fate, like stumbling onto a lucky opportunity.

The ability was quite impressive. Catheya had become one with the world when she entered that state. More importantly, it allowed her to draw upon a small part of the environment’s power, augmenting her strength while saving on energy consumption. Even when just having grasped the new ability, Catheya’s skills had gotten around 10% stronger. Given enough time, that number was sure to increase.

It was a free boost akin to having a second Cultivation Manual, but it wasn’t without limitations. The biggest problem with Earthly and Heavenly Harmonization was that it wasn’t always useful. In Catheya’s case, she could only really draw upon the skill when the Heavens and Earth were aligned to her path. In other words, an icy and deathly environment. The better the match, the more power she could extract from her surroundings. In contrast, the effect was almost negligible in environments not aligned with her Dao.

But what if you could turn the world around you into an image of your Dao?

That was the best solution they’d come up with while traversing the Everfrost Isles. To form a bridge between the environment and yourself, allowing you to draw on its power even when you didn’t have a natural affinity. This wasn’t something new or groundbreaking. Catheya wasn’t an expert on the subject, but she’d heard it was a popular method, and she had two ways to accomplish this.

The first was through using items, such as formations. She already had some experience in that regard, engraving simple arrays onto icicles she formed. Of course, it was only a small interest on her part and mostly geared toward Lich Arts. But she possessed talent in the subject and could pick up the required techniques. The Earthly and Heavenly Harmonization could even alleviate one of the biggest drawbacks of Formation Masters: the large energy expenditure.

The second option was to work towards forming a domain. Catheya always had one of the greatest Dao affinities of her generation in Clan Sharva’Zi, and her various encounters and opportunities pushed those even further. Yet, she hadn’t formed intent, a domain, or something like his techniques.

This was an intentional choice on her part. Her cultivation path had been in flux since the Twilight Ocean, where various opportunities opened new doors for her. She was also unsure what role she saw herself taking—being more of a supportive caster and group leader or being an outright mage combatant. As such, she’d remained reluctant to transform her understanding of Dao since it was hard to undo something like that.

However, now that she’d attained Earthly and Heavenly Harmonization, it was time for her to pick a direction. Forming a Dao domain now seemed superior to intent or technique. It was also a much simpler solution than working with formations since it didn’t force you to rely on equipment.

The problem was that this solution was extremely difficult. Harmonization internalizes outside Dao to elevate your own, while domains externalize one’s Dao to enforce it onto the world around you. They were essentially opposing theories. Practicing both could be considered a paradox. Yet it was possible, and Catheya believed she had already taken the first steps in this direction.

Both domain and formations were great options that would not just create synergy with the Earthly and Heavenly Harmonization, but also directly improve her strength. She could even pick both to create an incredibly powerful cultivation system where all fed into each other. However, it was probably better to focus on one or the other before Ultom, mastering one aspect over having middling accomplishments in two.

Either way, she finally found her path forward, and Zac’s heart sang from seeing the unadulterated joy in Catheya’s eyes. Even then, their discussion weighed heavily in the back of his mind. He’d so grandly proclaimed they’d make their own fate, but you needed power for that. Power they didn’t have, even if everything went perfectly in the Perennial Vastness and beyond.

Thankfully, he’d already found a solution: the Hollow Court. The problems that had kept them both up at night could be solved with one word from the Primo. Not even the Supremacies of the Abyssal Shores would dare have any differing opinion if he put his foot down.

It was an easy trade. A treasure for freedom. He just needed to survive snatching it.

70

UNION

“Remember, if you want me to lean on you, you better be strong enough.”

With that, Catheya sashayed away, her swaying hips creating a hypnotizing dance that brought back some soul-stirring memories from the past month. Zac only snapped out of the trance as Catheya turned a corner after throwing him a final wink.

“Vixen,” Zac muttered with a smile as he turned to his own storefront.

Zac had some ideas about why Catheya acted the way she did, apart from being in a good mood after breaking through. He’d have to be a fool to stop her. Their time inside the Perennial Vastness was limited, so why not enjoy it? They could be dead tomorrow, and there was no point in leaving behind any regrets. And they hadn’t only fooled around. They took some extra time, sure, but both accomplished their goals.

There was only one missing piece to the Omnitool now, though there was no immediate urgency for him to fetch it. The hammer could withstand the Dao-filled environment for over three hours already, which was more than enough to continue working on adding a second Cosmic Cycle to an F-grade tool.

The past year had proven that [Cosmic Forge] was not only the key to creating a working Core Formation Method. It was the key to passing through Hegemony.

The prospect of forming a High-quality Cosmic Core right out the gate felt increasingly distant the more details he added to his plan. The glossed-over sections from when he first put together the step-by-step method hid hard-to-solve issues when put under a magnifying glass. At the same time, he didn’t have any Cultivation Manual that would refine his core, leaving him with no choice but to add more treasures in the future to push it from Middle to Peak-quality.

His Cosmic Core needed to be ready for that.

Today, he could add twenty-eight layers to his practice axes, just six short of a second Cosmic Cycle. But those axes had maxed out their potential. There was no way they’d ever manage to withstand completing the cycle. As for adding a third and a fourth? Forget about it.

The same thing could be said for his Cosmic Core. It wasn’t enough for him to form a Middle-quality Cosmic Core. He needed to do it in a way where he ended up with a stable product whose potential wasn’t exhausted. If not, he would be in serious trouble. Hegemony wasn’t like the E-grade. The stage couldn’t be brute forced, even if you had pills and treasures at your beck and call.

Some unique items could help mitigate the problems with a messy core. However, there was a reason most Hegemons, including cultivators, were stuck at the threshold of the grade. They’d formed subpar cores with troublesome or even irreparable issues, solidifying having reached the end of their cultivation journey. The few that managed to push a bit further were generally stuck at Middle Hegemony.

There were only four bottlenecks in the D-grade, but each was an insurmountable mountain if you didn’t come prepared. [Cosmic Forge] was his key to avoiding such a fate. The better he understood the techniques, and the more memories of the inheritance he unlocked, the more time and effort he’d save down the road.

Zac spent another two months working on his crafting techniques and formation plan until he found a suitable mission. It would take him into the depths of a Life-attuned Red Zone, one he had detailed information on, courtesy of Valsa—a perfect opportunity to finish his hammer.

The Red Zone, though not an aquatic world, was called Endless Cerulean. It was a jungle, where the vast majority of the foliage was in different hues of blue. The world had five suns, all radiating powerful fluctuations of Life. There were always at least two in the sky, creating an environment of growth without rest.

There were two dangers in Endless Cerulean, one of which was naturally the denizens of the jungle. The rife amounts of Divine Energy put both plants and beasts in a state of forced progress, which often led to unpredictable mutations and unstable mental states. Just as important, most beasts were starved.

The unique environment forced advancement, and ambient energy alone wasn’t enough to fuel the process when you reached a certain point. Endless Cerulean was vast and full of life, yet starvation was one of the most common reasons for flora and fauna dying. Of course, they were soon turned to fertilizer, and something new sprung up to take their place.

If you wanted to live, you had to eat. And to eat, you had to fight. One day in, Zac had already been forced to kill dozens of desperate beasts. Using his aura to scare away attackers was completely useless. Hunger and pain drove most animals mad, and the only thing he did by showing off his strength was to attract more predators.

The second danger of Endless Cerulean was related to the first. It came from the suns in the sky, the source of the energy and starvation. Each sun acted as a gathering array, releasing vast amounts of Divine Energy. And while there were generally only two or three in the sky, the five suns didn’t have the same orbits.

Occasionally, four or even five suns would be up simultaneously, at which point the environment would grow unbearable. Those already struggling wouldn’t be able to take the incredible influx of energy and die from Life Poisoning. Those who could endure would still have the effect of forced growth multiplied at the cost of longevity, resulting in a mad struggle for sustenance.

Every time five suns shone in the sky, roughly once every ten days, a huge purge would occur in Endless Cerulean. The weak would be culled while the strong feasted. During those times, cultivators had to be extremely careful of the beasts and the overflowing energy. If not careful, you’d also get hit by Life Poisoning, resulting in mutations or deviations. Obviously, Life cultivators were better at withstanding the effects.

Zac only felt comfort as he stood atop a branch, looking at the four suns drowning the sky with golden radiance. His Cosmic Energy was full, yet large amounts of Divine Energy burrowed into his body. For most, this would be an impossible-to-block attack. For Zac, it was nourishment. The golden vortices in his cells greedily swallowed whatever they could while [Purity of the Void] removed any impurities.

Cultivating his Body Tempering Method in this kind of environment would be significantly more effective than in his cave back home. That wasn’t why he’d come here today. Zac hid his presence and aura as he continued deeper into the jungle. Even then, he was constantly attacked, and he left a trail of shredded plants and emaciated carcasses in his wake.

The zone’s mission was to find a Five-Life Fruits, a local specialty that could only appear when all five suns stood high in the sky. Being showered by the Life from the quintuple suns could force certain trees down a road of no return. They couldn’t withstand the energy storm, so they focused on the next generation.

The trees used the surge and their spirituality to form a single fruit, dying in the process. The great accumulation of Life and a hint of Death resulted in a Peak-quality Longevity Treasure. Every single one awarded 950 Mana, one of the highest rewards Zac had seen for individual items. When the fifth sun finally joined the others, Zac understood why.

There was only a short window of opportunity every ten days, and few trees managed to form a Five-Life Fruit. Even with [Forester’s Constitution] and his [Lucky Beads], Zac barely found one just before one of the suns dipped beneath the horizon. As a huge snake gobbled it down after slaughtering dozens of enemies for the prize.

Two clouds of Life and Death shrouded the wounded beast just as it was about to slither away, and it didn’t even get to release a hiss before its huge head flew into the sky. Zac flashed over and extracted the fruit after some gory digging. It was covered in blood and bile, but it counted according to Null. It was a nice little bonus that would pay for the outing, but Zac was more interested in the real prize. Thanks to Valsa he already knew what he was looking for, and it wasn’t far away.

Two days later, Zac panted in the middle of an enormous clearing, his body seemingly as small as an ant before the severed tree. Its size was an aberration in this huge jungle of death and rebirth, clearly indicating it had some secret. Said tree had been Zac’s target since day one, and it hadn’t been difficult to track down. The only reason it was allowed to remain standing was that it exuded an incredibly deadly aura.

The tree stockpiled vast amounts of Life every surge and then transformed into a protective domain that kept even Late-stage Beast Kings at bay. Even Zac’s Void Vajra Constitution wasn’t enough to withstand that much weaponized Life, and he had been forced to activate [Void Zone] to get close. Valsa had guessed the tree contained a Supreme Life treasure and had even planned to leak its details to Zac to lure him over. The events in the Stand of Saeward had preempted those plans, and they’d turned into an opportunity for him instead.

A throng of corpses were strewn around him, most impaled by still-slithering roots. Activating [Primal Edict] in a Life-attuned region had worked wonders, and the skill even killed the Middle-stage leader while Zac dealt with the others. The killed beasts had six legs with skin flaps between, looking a bit like supersized flying squirrels.

The squirrels were the only ones who could withstand the old tree’s domain, having formed a symbiotic relationship. Yet even they were covered in soul-chilling growths and tumors, unable to fully endure the tree’s natural aura. Yet they desperately defended their home when the domain failed to repel Zac. He was essentially a homewrecker, but he didn’t feel bad. These little bastards had been harassing him for days, launching deadly sneak attacks and disappearing into the dense tree crowns above.

Zac jumped onto the trunk, and splinters flew in every direction as he dug toward its center. The tree contained immense life force even after being felled and the broken wood mended before his very eyes. The tree branches were digging into the ground to create a new root system. The reason the tree had such a stubborn life force was soon made apparent.

In its center was a single strand of hair, shimmering with monstrous amounts of Life. It was almost as thick as Zac’s pinky finger but no more than half a meter long. Zac didn’t know what kind of beast it once belonged to, but something had transformed it into a Supreme Treasure of Pure Life. It was even covered in dense markings that made Zac think of the Stele of Conflict.

The huge tree had probably absorbed the strand while still a sapling, which allowed it to grow to its current overbearing size. Now, it would become the final ingredient for the Omnitool. Zac wasted no time taking out the little hammer and placing it against the strand. You’d have to be blind to miss this big guy toppling over, and it was just a matter of time before hunger drove one of the local tyrants into investigating.

The exposed strand of hair emitted an immense aura, but it was nothing in front of the First People’s methods. A powerful force dismantled the thread and sucked it into the Omnitool, and the tree beneath Zac’s feet shriveled the moment it lost the source of its power. Zac observed with rapt attention as the final rune came alive, when a sense of foreboding made him look up.

Just in time to see the golden suns obscured by a rapidly expanding cloud.

A clap of furious thunder shook the jungle, and a familiar pressure pushed down on Zac. Yet he could tell he wasn’t the target of Heaven’s wrath. That was reserved for the Omnitool. Zac had heard of Treasure Tribulations before but didn’t expect to see one right now. For one, the hammer had been crafted an eternity ago, while tribulations were supposed to appear right when the treasure was born.

Secondly, Zac didn’t feel the Omnitool was an unorthodox item or something solidly on the Boundless Path. It incorporated all Daos, so it should be considered a mixed-meaning treasure within the System’s purview. Of course, it was hard to argue with the crackling lightning above.

The lightning gathered, and Zac had no option but to throw the Omnitool far into the sky. Intervening with a tribulation would only make things worse for himself and the Omnitool. Ultimately, he had faith in Dasorm, the First People craftsman. Even if he lived in a time before the Dao, he would surely have crafted something that could withstand a bit of lightning.

The world turned white, then purple, as the first bolt crashed into the hammer. The Omnitool vibrated as seventeen runes lit up around it. Then, Zac saw something that shocked him to his core. The Omnitool didn’t just withstand the lightning, it used the still-lingering bolt to extract tremendous amounts of energy from the clouds above.

It even prevented the bolt from dissipating, and the crackling clouds shrank at a visible speed. The Heavens roared with fury, and a second bolt fell to mete judgement. It didn’t help. The Omnitool greedily accepted the punishment and used it to form a second connection to the sky.

A third bolt never descended. The Omnitool had stolen the essence of the Heavens before it got the chance to accumulate one. Zac looked on with awe as the Omnitool floated into his hand, only a bit warm from the tribulation.

“I can’t believe you’re so overbearing,” Zac muttered with a smile. “I have a thing or two to learn from you.”

The hammer’s appearance hadn’t changed since the tribulation, but it felt far more tangible in his hands. It also emitted a vast aura, like it contained a replica of the Heavens themselves. All Dao was represented inside, and Zac couldn’t wait to use it to add some Cosmic Cycles.

A powerful roar in the distance shut down that idea before it could form. One of the rulers of the jungle had been awoken by the commotion, and a vast Late D-grade aura spread through the area. Zac had already activated [Void Zone] to hide his presence, and he made a beeline toward the exit.

Zac appeared in his mansion a few days later and descended to his workshop at the base. Having stabilized the hammer was a big weight off his shoulders. He no longer needed to visit unfamiliar and confusing Red Zones. He’d be able to save weeks every month and put the saved time into furthering his studies into [Cosmic Forge].

Eight months passed where Zac spent more than three-quarters of his time inside his mansion. He never left for more than ten days, only heading into a Red Zone based on Life, Death, or Conflict to make some quick Mana, accruing more than when he toiled for a month in zones based on foreign peaks.

If exploring the Red Zones based on the other Dao Peaks was like swimming against the current, then visiting battlefields and worlds of Life or Death was like taking a stroll in his backyard. Very few missions managed to stump him, and some resulted in shocking payouts.

Catheya was also quite happy to have him around more, and he was making great progress on his projects. The pile of discarded practice axes gradually turned into a small hill as his limits kept being pushed. Finally, he reached the point he’d been waiting for. The current axe had withstood thirty-three enhancements.

Zac had reached this point dozens of times already, but none of the others had been as steady as this one. Zac was nervous, but his hands were steady as he extracted the essence from a piece of rusty metal. It had once been a part of an E-grade War Axe, but lying on an energy-dense battlefield for eons transformed the shard into what could pass as a Peak-quality F-grade Natural Treasure containing the Dao of Axe. It was the perfect material for the final step of the second Cosmic Cycle.

The essence was moved to the practice axe, and Zac didn’t blink for almost thirty minutes as he connected one thread after another. Finally, the essence was fully integrated, but Zac didn’t relax just yet. The axe trembled precipitously until it stabilized. A fierce aura burst from the axe as the edge grew a shade darker.

Success.

Only then did Zac breathe out in relief, but he didn’t even get a chance to celebrate before a surge of memories sprouted in his mind, like they’d always been there and he’d just forgotten about them for some reason. Now, the details of [Cosmic Extraction] were finally laid bare, along with the inherited experience where he remembered practicing the technique for decades.

There weren’t any surprises to the technique. It was almost a reversion of [Cosmic Infusion], where you extracted the equivalent of a single essence from a weapon. The process could be repeated, but each modification would make the extraction more difficult. Of course, if you messed up, there was also the risk of destroying the weapon altogether.

Zac couldn’t wait to keep practicing, but he first inspected the other burst of information provided by completing the quest. Like last time, he got a preview of the next layer, probably to give him something to work toward.

The third layer of [Cosmic Forge] was called [Essence Union]. It still wasn’t a proper crafting technique, but it was getting closer. Zac was only privy to a short introduction to the technique, but that small piece was enough to fill him with excitement and anticipation. The first two layers were straightforward: to add or remove essence from a piece of equipment.

[Essence Union] was a technique that would refine the process. It was very rare to find an essence that perfectly matched your path. But what if you could take the useful parts of two different Natural Treasures and add some of your Dao as glue? Creating tailor-made essences would allow you to craft a piece of equipment far more suited to your path.

Zac almost drooled imagining using [Essence Union] to transform all the treasures he’d collected for his Core Formation into perfectly suited materials. Unfortunately, unlocking the next chapter was easier said than done.

Cosmic Forge (Unique, Inheritance): Extract two Cosmic Cycles from a three-cycle refined item. Reward: [Essence Union]. (0/34)

71

APPROACHING THE LIMITS

The quest asked Zac to remove two Cosmic Cycles from a ‘three-cycle item’ and a refined item at that. In other words, he needed to extract the spirituality of a High-quality E-grade equipment, essence by essence, until it was reduced to Low-quality. Not only that, but the product needed to be in harmony and not teetering on the brink of collapse.

The task seemed daunting, but Zac was full of vigor as he set out to accomplish the task. [Cosmic Extraction] didn’t provide much use for his Core Formation, but [Essence Union] definitely held a lot of potential. It might allow him to completely reinvent the Core Formation process and sidestep the biggest pitfall of being a mortal Hegemon.

Unfortunately, will and desire weren’t always enough to move mountains.

Two months passed, and Zac blankly looked at the shattered remains of an axe. He couldn’t believe how much more difficult extraction was than infusion. He was making progress, but he hadn’t extracted a single essence so far. Every piece of spirituality in equipment, even those ill-fitting with the rest, was an integral part of their makeup.

To extract it was to leave a gaping hole in the tool’s inner structure, akin to removing an array flag from a formation. You needed speed and a great understanding of energy and materials to rearrange the remaining spirituality before the thing destabilized and exploded. And this was just the first layer. The difficulty would exponentially increase by removing more and more pieces from the item.

Technically, it was within the realm of possibility to finish the quest before he broke through. He had plenty of gear in his Spatial Rings, and there were always guests selling equipment stockpiles to make a quick buck. But the task itself was just so incredibly complicated, and the inherited memories were far from enough.

Zac was confident he’d get there eventually, but not within the time limit he’d set for himself. If he wanted to use [Essence Union] for his Core Formation, he’d probably have to stay inside the Perennial Vastness for another decade or two. For lack of better options, Zac returned to basics.

His theoretical foundations to accomplish [Cosmic Extraction] were severely lacking. Just like when he tried to create his two stances. He was putting the cart before the horse, trying to leapfrog the equivalent of the Formation Stage and directly work on the Integration Stage. Highly inefficient.

Zac decided to start from the beginning and learn to infuse three cycles into an E-grade axe before dismantling it. Building the weapon himself would help him understand how the essences and spiritual threads held an item together. This kind of practice would also help with his Core Formation plans.

Their lives had entered a stable routine by that point. Ogras and Catheya often teamed up for missions while snatching the occasional bounty through [Perennial Transformations]. Zac joined now and then, but it wasn’t really necessary. Both had pushed their strength to new heights with their latest breakthroughs, so Zac didn’t feel he had to worry about their safety anymore.

The Seven Heavens failed to make a comeback in the Perennial Vastness. As expected, another prince came. The Undead Empire attacked with wild abandon, constantly tracking his movements and crippling his operations before he could set them up. He couldn’t even gather Mana in peace. The previous bloody slaughters also made others leery of lending a helping hand.

The Revenants never attacked him directly, though, as they were obviously not his match. They simply lingered at a safe distance, forming the same intangible threat Zac endured before Valsa struck. The prince stopped visiting even Green Zones, fearful he’d meet the same fate as his sister. Then one day, after just a single year, his storefront was gone.

As such, there was nothing to hamper Zac’s progress, and the Mana was veritably flowing into his accounts. It allowed him to spend extravagantly in the Keys of Ascension and similar unique zones to speed up his progress with [Cosmic Forge] and his Core Formation plan. Since he had such an abundance of Mana, he even tried other ways to improve.

Unfortunately, he was fast reaching the same conclusion as Kruta. He’d exhausted his potential in the E-grade. His Soul and Constitution required far-too-much energy to progress. His technique had reached a bottleneck as well. It wasn’t that his stances were refined to perfection but that there were no further insights to infuse. The two techniques were based on his Daos and were just Middle Dao Branches. That level of understanding wasn’t enough to reach the higher stages.

There was only one holdout where he felt there was still room for improvement: Hidden Nodes. He already had an incredible number of nodes, and all of them were the kind that could evolve. Most would be over the moon with such a result, yet Zac would be lying if he said he was satisfied. Was six really the limit?

Certainly, there was also [Quantum Gate], but he didn’t count that as a natural Hidden Node. It more resembled a backdoor his Technocrat mother wanted to use to sneak the Dao of Technology into a cultivator.

Zac was unsure whether there were any more Void Emperor Nodes hiding in some corner of his body. His instincts said no, that the three formed a single system. But there certainly should be more Draugr Nodes. There was just no way three was the limit for a bloodline like Eoz. Even Catheya had opened a fifth Hidden Node inside the Perennial Vastness, four of which were bloodline nodes.

Yet Zac came up empty-handed even after spending 20,000 Mana and multiple C-grade Nexus Coins on treasures and opportunities meant to localize Hidden Nodes. Catheya tried to help as best as she could, but nothing worked. Zac arrived at two possible explanations for his failure.

One, his odd constitution made him lose some of his Draugr Nodes. Perhaps the Void Emperor Nodes blocked their appearance. Second, there might be a problem with how he became a descendant of Eoz. Perhaps he didn’t carry the full bloodline.

After all, the bloodline was inherited from samples found in a spatial crack on the frontier. That Draugr corpse definitely wasn’t Eoz himself, but rather some descendant. Even if his Duplicity Core had somehow purified the bloodline to the point he triggered an ‘Ancestral Descent,’ it might be incomplete.

Perhaps that issue would be fixed by visiting the Abyssal Shore and reconnecting with the Abyssal Lake. For now, the situation was bleak, and he stopped wasting resources on a fool’s errand. He even gave Ogras [Hanamon’s Awakening], the node-opening treasure he got from Yrial.

While extremely precious, it was worthless to Zac since it only worked when you had already localized a node. The demon had long since done just that and was working on breaking it open. The treasure allowed him to finish the job in one go and spend his extra Mana on other things.

Having nothing else to work on, Zac focused all his attention on [Cosmic Forge]. It took him one year of painstaking effort to reach two Cosmic Cycles with an E-grade item. The technique was the same, but the far more powerful insights and energies made the process more volatile. And while he’d nurtured an almost instinctual understanding of [Cosmic Forge]’s concepts, progress only grew more difficult.

A highly anticipated guest provided a break from his practice. Zac had just destroyed another practice axe when a snicker almost made Zac’s heart jump out of his mouth. Zac swirled around, finding Esmeralda standing inside his workshop.

The toad hadn’t appeared once since dropping off the missives, and Zac was shocked at her progress over the past three years. She was over two meters taller and possessed a significantly more powerful aura. It wasn’t enough to pressure Zac, but there was a mysterious depth to her that made him think of his Void Emperor bloodline.

Esmeralda had probably managed to awaken another part of her heritage, which was one of the most important aspects of a beast’s cultivation. She was progressing quickly, which was undoubtedly a benefit of her unique situation. Of course, Zac was certain Esmeralda was working hard on her cultivation, just like him. The Left Imperial Palace was the key to breaking her curse and returning to her former glory.

“You scared me,” Zac sighed as he looked at the toad anxiously. “It’s done?”

Esmeralda grinned, making a few signs that said something along the lines of it being child’s play.

“And everything’s there?” Zac said with a raised brow.

Esmeralda scoffed and made a series of croaks and explanations. The tirade was both longer and more complex than he was used to, and it took Zac over ten minutes to figure out what the toad was trying to convey. She didn’t want to stay long, saying she had to leave to get something important. The next time they met, it would be in Zecia before the trial started.

“My home world is newly integrated and protected by the System,” Zac said. “How will you find me?”

Esmeralda grandly slapped her chest, indicating it wouldn’t be a problem. The next moment, she spat out an opalescent pearl covered in gastric juice. Zac looked at the thing with a grimace. A few signs indicated that Esmeralda could find that sphere, so he just needed to place it on a gathering array on his planet.

“In case your method doesn’t pan out, you can send me a message through the mercantile system,” Zac said, handing her an Information Crystal.

Esmeralda huffed with annoyance over Zac’s lack of faith but still took the crystal. After that, she left, leaving Zac to his own devices. Zac didn’t mind, and he eagerly rushed down to the mountain’s base, where he infused a bit of energy into the ring before throwing it out. Even then, Zac was forced to activate [Earthstrider] to get out of the way as a mountain of treasure rapidly formed.

The old thief had already explained the situation. Esmeralda had broken all seals and triggers, even those placed on any items inside. However, doing so had destabilized the ring, much like his experiments with [Cosmic Extraction]. She’d applied a technique that would keep it temporarily stable, but the moment it was activated, it would spit out everything before collapsing.

Zac’s breaths turned heavy as he gazed upon the mountain of wealth. He almost gave in to the adolescent dream of swimming in a sea of treasure, but he reined himself in. Instead, he called over Catheya and Ogras to help sort through the pile.

“I’ve been saying you should invite me more often,” Ogras said, his eyes veritably burning as dozens of shadowy tendrils dug into the mountain.

He even conjured eight Shadow Servants, all looking like beautiful Torrid Demons, to help out. They were part of the prize for incorporating that odd thing inside the Shifting Dream into his Spiritlock Physique. Of course, the appearance of the Shadow Servants was all Ogras. When these things made their first appearance, Catheya had almost blown a gasket. Zac had been forced to seclude himself to avoid listening to her and Ogras’ complaints.

However, something had changed after two months, and Catheya no longer seemed to mind the demon’s antics. She even figured out a way to give the Shadow Servants dazzling dresses made of ice and mist. Around the same time, Zac started to receive positive comments about Catheya from the demon, and he recounted stories where having a stable Dao Companion had gotten one demon or another out of a jam.

Zac could smell the conspiracy but was happy to play along since it kept the peace. It took over three days to go through it all, even when working together. The number of arrays, talismans, and raw resources was simply shocking. The First Heaven had probably wanted to prepare for any eventuality inside the Perennial Vastness and sent Valsa inside with a huge care package.

It made Zac lament that all Nexus Coins on Valsa’s person had been returned to the System. He wouldn’t be surprised if her wallet held his whole net worth many times over. Still, the prize was nothing to scoff at. A tentative calculation put the normal materials at over 15 C-grade Nexus Coins. And with the Zecia war approaching and resources growing scarce, that number could be significantly higher.

The cash infusion was his biggest one since returning from the Orom World, but it wasn’t quite as exciting now that he had a lucrative Cosmic Vessel production line. Zac was more interested in the unique treasures and Cultivation Manuals. He found items for both [Love’s Bond] and [Verun’s Bite], and even Haro got some rare resources that would help speed up his growth.

There were six Cultivation Manuals in Valsa’s possession, though none seemed to be the one she practiced. They were rather those of her followers, and Zac guessed she had them to better understand the capabilities of her deathsworn. Most importantly, the manuals were all Peak D-grade, which essentially was the limits of conventional Cultivation Manuals.

After that, you’d have to create something individualized whether you wanted to or not. If you aimed for Monarchy, you were better off modifying the manual earlier. Still, any of these manuals was enough to become the foundation of a peak force in Zecia, and Zac now had six of them. It wouldn’t help in the short-run, but would drastically improve Earth’s long-term potential.

There were also over twenty Inheritance Skill Crystals, all of them of incredible quality. Just like when he got his hands on [Abyssal Phase], they’d let you inherit not just the skill itself but many memories associated with them. While all the skills were good, Zac didn’t find anything he wanted to add to his repertoire.

Every extra skill added to your pathways would have to be accounted for when forming your core. Creating a skill perfectly suited to your path was one thing, it didn’t require a lot of work to incorporate. But a semi-suitable skill not of his own creation? It would generate an energy imbalance that could cause problems even for cultivators. Zac already had enough baggage not to want to deal with that headache. He’d even foregone his plans to create or swap out any more skills before reaching Hegemony.

Catheya was the same. Most of the skills wouldn’t even work with Miasma, and the others weren’t suitable for her. She was more interested in some general compendiums and War Arrays they’d found, which would help her broaden her understanding of formations. Catheya chose to focus on domains, even with the challenge it presented. As Zac had suspected, she also wanted to add formations to her path when she had the time.

Ogras took one of the crystals, a scouting skill called [Wordly Cognizance]. The skill was a lot like the mysterious bowl Vai used to help navigate the dangers of the Void Star, and Zac felt it might be extremely useful inside the Left Imperial Palace. It would provide the demon with a second sense where he’d be able to sense any energy disturbances for miles in every direction.

Even people trying to hide their aura usually left some clues to their presence in the way the energy flowed around them. Only the most talented scouts and assassins managed to completely erase any trace of their presence. The demon hoped to incorporate his network of shadows with the skill to further amplify the effect, but he wouldn’t use the skill crystal until after breaking through. Just like Zac, Ogras didn’t want any extra baggage.

The rest of the skills and resources would return with him to Port Atwood and become another infusion into the budding empire’s foundations.

Esmeralda’s visit was only a short break before things returned to normal. Months turned into a blur until Zac accomplished his goal, where he infused three full cycles into an E-grade axe. He hadn’t even touched [Cosmic Extraction] all that time, only focusing on shoring up his foundations. Unfortunately, there was no time to delve into the method now.

It took another two months to incorporate what he’d learned into his Core Formation Method, and almost seven years had passed since entering the Perennial Vastness. Time had passed in a flash compared to his seclusion back on Earth. Even then, Zac could feel it in his bones, it was time to finally move on.

Zac opened his Status Screen, looking at the final line briefly.

[Mana: 109,534]

He was at the limits of the tenth echelon, where he’d stayed for the past three months. He hadn’t yet felt any hint of the Mana Poisoning as most described it. However, there was a sense of rejection, like the Perennial Vastness was trying to push him out. It was still manageable, but there wasn’t much point in stubbornly resisting.

Climbing any further wasn’t really an option either. The few who could endure the Mana Poisoning at these levels would usually enter seclusion the moment they crossed the threshold of 100,000. It wasn’t that the tenth echelon was a hard limit, but hidden safeguards were implemented. Reaching the tenth had added a whopping 1,000 Mana to the monthly fee, compared to the 100 Mana per echelon in the first nine. Gaining Mana from other guests was also a thing of the past, even if that revenue stream had dwindled over the years. Many still approached him for duels because of his uncanny ability to pinpoint weaknesses in blueprints, but the large echelon gap turned the bouts into normal spars. As for the few guests he encountered while traveling the Red Zones, none had dared attack him in over a year.

He’d still be able to increase his Mana if he applied himself. But with over 3,000 Mana a month in fees after entering the eleventh echelon, Zac wasn’t sure he’d be able to cross the next threshold.

Not only that, but Null confirmed the pressure on him would drastically increase if he kept accruing Mana. He was already pushing it by crossing 100,000. Zac doubted he’d reach the twelfth echelon before the sense of rejection would mess with his Core Formation. The flip side was that each additional echelon beyond the tenth provided significant benefits.

Reaching the eleventh would improve the environment during your breakthrough by 20%. Better yet, you’d no longer have to pay rent the second you entered seclusion for Core Formation. The Mana you’d gathered would stay with you until the end. And there just so happened to be one final payout waiting for him. One that would let him soar to the thirteenth echelon in one go.

It was finally time to fetch the Remnants.

72

BACK AT THE SCENE

Zac was reluctant to send the message he’d been dreading for so long, but he did. Catheya arrived, and his emotions were mirrored on her face.

“It’s time?” Catheya sighed.

“It’s time.”

“We only got seven years,” Catheya muttered, leaning her head against his chest.

Zac’s heart bled, but he pressed on. “I can’t stay much longer. I’m going straight into seclusion after getting the Remnants. I don’t think I’ll be able to do much beyond sending a message that I’m back.”

“Do you really have to do something so dangerous? Can’t you form your core the normal way?”

“I could, but it would be just as risky, only in a different way,” Zac said. “If my idea works, I’ll be able to skip right past the most dangerous part.”

“I’d ask you to be careful, but when has that ever worked?” Catheya smiled. “When are you leaving?”

“We still have some time.”

Zac spent the following days not sparing a thought about cultivation, the future, or the many things that usually demanded his attention. He spent all his time with Catheya, trying to squeeze a lifetime into two weeks. Ogras also popped in a few times for a drink and to reminisce. It was blissful, but reality soon caught up.

“I’m going to miss you,” Catheya said as the teleportation gate sprung up behind him. “I’m jealous. It’ll only be a few months for you on the outside. Meanwhile, I’ll stay here for at least another three years.”

Zac weakly smiled as he held her in his arms.

“Alright, go.” Catheya smiled as she took a step back. “It’s time for you to show everyone they were wrong. That you can fuse Life and Death. I can’t wait to see their faces.”

“I’ll miss you,” Zac said. “Be careful until we see each other again.”

With that, Zac stepped through the teleporter, jumping through a Green Zone to step onto the teleportation square. Zac’s heart was a mess as he put his hand against the teleportation pillar, opening up a path to the Calamity. He stepped inside and was immediately forced to fasten himself to the ground with Vivi’s vines as a roaring wind tried to sweep him off his feet. Not even the raging squalls could drown out the storm in his mind.

One island after another flashed by as Zac woodenly began the ascent toward the Calamity’s upper layers. Zac barely registered it, exuding such a desolate aura the native beasts didn’t dare approach. He almost wished they had. They had tried to keep a positive outlook for the future, but the reality of the situation they found themselves in was impossible to completely ignore.

The situation was so messy, and there were no guarantees things would work out how they’d hoped. It almost felt like a breakup, a goodbye. Zac shook himself out of his state. Their problems wouldn’t be solved by him moping around. The sooner he broke through, the more time he would have to work toward their goals on the outside.

It was an odd feeling, traversing the Calamity again. In the seven years that had passed, he hadn’t gotten much stronger, really. His only real gain was his evolved constitution, whereas his attributes were almost the same. Even then, it was completely different being back.

It was so easy.

Part of it was certainly his tenth-echelon Mana domain. The unstable deposits of Life and Death were bent to his will within ten meters, essentially removing the danger from deadly explosions biting into his flesh. The other part was experience. Having visited so many dangerous regions had given him an instinctual understanding of Dao-filled environments’ shifting and unpredictable nature.

The first step was understanding they weren’t unpredictable at all. The seemingly random storm followed the laws of Dao, just like everything else. The better you understood the Dao, the better you would be prepared for whatever the universe threw at you. When paired with his danger sense and connection to the Daos around him, Zac didn’t even get close to encountering anything considered dangerous over the next two days.

Admittedly, luck was on his side. The lower layer of the Calamity was somewhat calm, without any squalls that forced him to take cover. He kept a steady pace climbing higher and higher, reaching an island just below a dense cloud curtain crackling with unstable energy.

It was the great divider separating the lower and upper regions. You could consider it the test you needed to pass to access the richer environments above. All beasts living on the lower islands dreamed of making it through the barrier, but most Early Beast Kings would have to put their lives on the line to do so.

Zac didn’t believe he’d be quite that pressed, but he still made ample preparations while waiting for an opportunity. Hours passed before Zac sensed the eruption of energy below he’d been waiting for. There was no island inside the storm curtain you could use to advance. You had to catch a ride.

Small vibrations shook the island, indicating it was time to go. A golden laurel appeared on Zac’s head while the pillars of [Empyrean Aegis] rose behind him. With his defenses in place, Zac disappeared from the shore, using [Earthstrider] to appear over a hundred meters into the air. The jump allowed him to get a better look at the situation below, and he took two rapid steps to get into position.

Normally, he’d already be falling toward the depths, but Zac activated a wind talisman to temporarily render him weightless. Then, a specialized glider resembling a huge frisbee appeared beneath his feet, just in time for a powerful pillar of wind to slam into it from underneath. The combination of his weightlessness and the glider’s large surface area resulted in a tremendous amount of lift, and Zac shot upward like a cannon.

The glider broke apart from the energy-dense updraft, but it had already served its purpose. Zac deactivated the wind talisman just as he was about to enter the clouds, returning his weight. Even then, he found himself tossed around like a ragdoll by the raging storm within. Not even his Mana domain was enough to quell the unbridled energy, pushing him into the same situation as when he first entered the Calamity all those years ago.

He was like a leaf in the middle of a hurricane, and a constant barrage of chaotic explosions tried to break through the golden barrier enclosing him. The first and second pillars crumbled down below, and bleeding gashes started accumulating.

The calming effect of his blood worked wonders, and the storm weakened a bit. Zac helped the process by opening a series of wounds across his body, which helped spread the effect. Still, the onslaught was relentless. The third pillar soon crumbled, and the fourth teetered on collapse.

Luckily, the curtain wasn’t all that thick, and the accumulated momentum gave him more than enough speed. Zac shot out of the clouds just as the fourth pillar collapsed.

He was in luck. He took out a second glider and used the remaining updraft to steer the vessel toward a nearby island.

Sometimes, you found yourself in the middle of a no man’s land after passing through. At that point, you could only fall back into the curtain and make a second attempt later, unless you had a special means of flight. With the curtain overcome and an island just ten minutes away, Zac had passed the first hurdle of his mission.

Zac took out a Healing Pill as he took in the surroundings. It was a familiar yet foreign scene. The upper layer of the Calamity was mostly more of the same, but everything was magnified. The innumerable suns were larger and more radiant, resulting in greater ambient energies. That, in turn, generated more ferocious storms.

In such an environment, the smaller islands of the lower region wouldn’t survive for long. The upper islands were fewer but much larger, and Zac spotted three hulking Calamity Mountains floating in the distance. More importantly, he vaguely felt a hint of his target coming from somewhere above. The fluctuations were weak, but it was unmistakably Creation and Oblivion.

It could have been just a natural occurrence of the Daos. The environment was certainly energy-dense enough to form at least some hints of the upper Daos of the Peak of Chaos. The Remnants were stirring in his mind, though, confirming it wasn’t some random treasure that had been born.

Zac soon reached the island, where he was greeted by two powerful presences locking onto him. He hesitated a moment before releasing his aura. He only did so momentarily before restraining it as he ran, keeping to the shores. The pressure receded soon after, and the owners never made an appearance.

Those auras likely belonged to Middle-stage Beast Kings, but they hadn’t bothered with him after confirming he was just crossing the area. The aura he’d released was also enough to give them pause, and these beasts were smart enough to understand he wasn’t looking to take anyone’s lair like the vagabonds.

Not all beasts were so pragmatic, and Zac was forced into one pitched battle after another through his ascent. Some beasts were simply stupid and aggressive. Others wanted to gobble him up to improve their cultivation. After all, he was essentially a Supreme Natural Treasure with his attuned constitutions to the beasts of the Calamity. The constant harassment was annoying, but it wasn’t at the level of Endless Cerulean.

And the call urged him on.

It didn’t take long for the intangible feeling of the Remnants to turn into something clear. He could sense both splinter and shard above, and they seemed to be quite close to each other. A day passed, and he finally spotted the source. He’d just crossed a huge island that was more like a flat hill, possibly the broken-off base of a Calamity Mountain, and his destination was finally in full view.

It wasn’t a Calamity Mountain as he’d expected, but rather two suns locked in orbit with each other. They were slowly rotating just outside each other’s reach, like duelists circling their opponent in search of an opening. You didn’t need to have your head crammed full of ancient horrors to realize there was something different about these two suns compared to the others. The darkness of the Death-attuned star was much deeper, like the orb atop his [Pillar of Desolation].

Just looking at it left Zac’s eyes stinging, and his mind turned sluggish as the Dao within tried to erase his thoughts, even his soul. The golden sun was filled with vigor, pulsating like it was about to go supernova. It constantly released erratic solar flares that contained opalescent flames that filled Zac’s mind with ideas.

It was clear, however, that these suns weren’t purely made from Oblivion and Creation. The vast majority was still Life and Death, just like the rest of the suns in the Red Zone. Zac remembered the visions of the Heart of Oblivion and Spark of Creation. How they’d roved the universe, consuming and destroying to fuel their path. Most likely, the Remnants had entered two normal suns, attaching themselves like parasites to siphon off their energy.

There was also a smattering of small moons floating around the suns, forming a confusing pattern around their respective element. Zac wasn’t in any hurry to fly over since the island he was on was drifting closer, so he hid and observed the situation. The small moons looked inert, but they gave Zac a dangerous feeling.

As expected, something changed after two hours when a fifty-meter-long bird draped in beautiful golden feathers emerged from one of the satellites. It released a preening cry filled with the Dao of Life and hunger before jumping off. Zac frowned as the bird shot straight for the unstable sun. He wanted to intervene, but the bird was an Early Hegemon that excelled at speed.

It turned into a golden streak of light as it shot into the outer corona. A desolate cry echoed through the region before the quiet resumed. A minute later, a scorched and mutated miscreation dropped out of the flames, falling toward the storm curtain far below. Zac sighed as he looked at the burning carcass. The Remnant’s call of unfettered possibility had probably corroded its mind.

There were no doubt more creatures hiding within those satellites, resisting the temptations while using the Remnant’s unique Dao to cultivate. Yet none moved to intervene, which made Zac believe it wasn’t the first time a beast lost control and got itself killed. That was definitely good news. Pushing through those suns to reach the Remnants would be difficult enough. It might be too much to handle if he also had to deal with a bunch of Beast Kings.

The island reached its closest point to the twin suns, and Zac jumped off just as it started drifting away. This time, he was in his Draugr form, and he released a bloody but not too overbearing aura of the Dao of Death. It was just a bit stronger than what the bird just now had emitted.

It was the best solution he could come up with after some deliberation. Show the hidden inhabitants he was strong enough to qualify for a spot on the satellites but not strong enough to threaten the natural order of things. Even then, Zac’s heart thumped when two immense auras swept over him, each belonging to Late-stage Beast Kings. They were even more overbearing than the mysterious beast in the Calamity Mountain that disappeared when the whole thing collapsed.

The pressure almost made him turn the glider around, but he gritted his teeth and stayed the course. His gambit proved successful. The Death-attuned aura lingered a bit longer than the other, but it eventually retreated. Zac had been prepared for a bloody struggle, but skipping that step was obviously preferable.

There was no way he’d be able to take down a Late-stage Beast King without going all-out. Even then, he’d likely be left with grievous wounds, if he succeeded at all. Either case, it would mess with the next step of his plan, so he thanked his lucky stars as he gingerly landed on one of the smaller moons. The Dao of Oblivion was much clearer this close to the Remnant.

Zac made no move toward the sun, digging a simple cave instead and settling in. He ignored the increasing sense of urgency from the Remnants trapped inside the prison. The splinters were especially agitated with being so close to one of their brethren, but the shards weren’t much better. The second sun was not far away, releasing its beckoning call. Zac let the Remnants groan and complain. Everything was under control so long as they didn’t fully wake up and start to fight.

Zac spent the next five days in ‘meditation,’ where he only emerged once a day to stand at the moon’s surface. It was to get a full view of the sun as it rose from below like a sunrise. In reality, Zac didn’t spend a second in meditation. What would be the point? For one, he simply couldn’t meditate on the Daos like cultivators or the hidden Beast Kings around him. And even if he could, he was still inside a Time Chamber.

Zac kept a constant watch of energy fluctuations and auras, gauging the reactions of his neighbors. On the first day, more than ten perceptions locked onto him when he emerged from the cave. After six days, none bothered with him anymore. The auras had stabilized, indicating the beasts had returned to a meditative state. The locals would wake up when Zac made his move, but exchanging a few thousand Mana for a couple seconds of extra time might be the difference between success and failure.

The rest of the time was spent observing the sun, formulating a strategy to snatch the Remnant within. Luckily, Zac had experience with similar missions and some unique advantages that would put him in a far-better position than the unfortunate bird from the other day.

On the seventh day, Zac’s eyes opened thirty minutes before his daily outing to witness the sunrise. Everything was the same, but Zac felt the intangible winds of destiny urge him forward. The slumbering momentum in his body had started stirring years ago when he added the last piece to the Omnitool, but it had been too early. Zac had kept things in check since then, but there was no point in holding back any longer. His heart beat with excitement, but he was careful to keep his aura completely steady as he took out the [Hollow Core].

If everything went according to plan, he’d start his Core Formation within the hour.

73

LIKE THE MOTH

“Mad… you’re mad!” Null cried in Zac’s mind as he opened his robes to expose his stomach. “You’re already at the tenth echelon, and the boss confirmed you’d reach the thirteenth by snatching these things.

“Do you know what the thirteenth echelon means? I don’t even know when someone’s reached that level. It’ll be like having the boss himself aiding you in your Core Formation. A gallery’s top-tier guests hurry into seclusion after hitting the eleventh. A rare few narrowly squeeze into the twelfth, but whole galleries can come and go without such a guest appearing.”

Zac ignored Null’s prattling. It had been a daily nuisance since the guide realized what he was planning to do, or at least part of it.

“You have everything you need to accomplish your goal. There’s no need to go to these lengths, risking both our lives! People normally go into seclusion for months to stabilize their Dao and minds before they break through, not doing foolish things like this!”

“This is happening whether you like it or not,” Zac answered with a thought. “You’re better off cheering me on than trying to sow seeds of doubt in my mind. Or keep watch of the big guy hiding in that moon over there.”

“Bah, fine!” Null said with exasperation. “For seven years you’ve tortured me with your antics. Worse comes to worst, I’ll just die. At least my torment will be over.”

“That’s the spirit.” Zac smiled as he infused some Mental Energy filled with all three of his Daos into the [Hollow Core].

The Natural Treasure looked like a somewhat dull crystal orb, but it lit up when his Daos entered its empty innards. It drew some energy from the environment, prompting a set of previously invisible markings to appear on its surface. Most were natural markings, but there were also a few exquisite runes engraved.

The runes were undoubtedly carved by the artisan who realized the use of the [Hollow Core]. They had nothing to do with the Core Formation itself but rather helped with absorbing the treasure. The runes detached the moment they absorbed enough ambient energy and formed a circle around his exposed belly button.

Zac felt a foreign energy enter his body and ordered his Hidden Nodes not to interfere. The energy congealed into a small sphere, which Zac dragged toward his Duplicity Core. He had long since realized that the Core Formation would have to occur within the Specialty Core, which meant the first step was to put the [Hollow Core] inside.

That way, it would act like an insulating layer, protecting the Duplicity Core from being damaged while he worked with the dangerous energies of the Core Formation process. The [Hollow Core] would liquefy into pure energy that nourished and stabilized the finished core, at which point Zac would connect the Cosmic Core with his Specialty Core.

Much of the Duplicity Core’s makeup was still outside his understanding. Not even Ultom could unravel the secrets behind his family’s ultimate experiment. Partly because the runes across its surface were encrypted, but most of the reason was that he couldn’t pierce the outer layers to inspect what hid within.

That fact was problematic, but the bouts of Lake-fueled inspiration allowed him to intuit a few conclusions. First, Zac strongly believed the Duplicity Core would automatically evolve when connected with a finished Cosmic Core. It was possible he’d have to fuel the process with a bunch of treasures, but he was already prepared for that eventuality.

Secondly, there was a hidden “hatch” on the Duplicity Core. He’d never managed to open it before, but Zac was certain it was meant for the Core Formation process. So, Zac led the small orb toward the hatch, prepared to yank it open by force. However, the hatch opened on its own when the orb drew close.

It was as though the Duplicity Core knew what he was up to, and the thought made a grim frown appear on Zac’s face. Truthfully, he would have preferred using his, admittedly crude, solutions over having the Duplicity Core act independently. For one, he didn’t want any help from his mother’s faction, even indirect help.

This also added unpredictability to the plans he painstakingly put together. However, he couldn’t stop now, like one couldn’t take back a loosed arrow. The hatch opening wasn’t the only change to the Duplicity Core. It was dragging energy into the space within. It was fine for now since he could use his energy and Dao to accommodate the pull.

Since it was his energy, it obviously wouldn’t add heterogeneity to his Core Formation. It would, however, affect some of his plans. Furthermore, the amount of energy dragged into the core was more than Zac could sustain. He estimated he’d last a day before running out of energy. Zac would be left with no choice but to start using treasures at that point, no matter whether he was ready to form his core or not.

Interestingly enough, Miasma wasn’t the only energy entering the Duplicity Core. Normal Cosmic Energy seeped out of the walls, providing no clue where it was stored. Not only that, the core was in an incredibly mysterious state Zac couldn’t explain. It both existed and didn’t in a weird quantum state of uncertainty.

It felt illusory, yet the energy was certainly there based on how it interacted with the Miasma. Zac couldn’t feel any connection to it either, unlike the Miasma and Dao being dragged inside. There was a weak hint of the Void hidden in the Cosmic Energy. It wasn’t like the Void Energy he used to power skills or his Bloodline Talents, but more like the theories of the Void had inverted the Cosmic Energy from its natural state.

Zac already suspected his bloodline was the key to making his Duplicity Core work, and this was further evidence supporting that theory. For all the grief Leandra had caused him, he had to give the Kayar-Elu some credit. They really knew what they were doing when forming this mysterious core.

The Technocrats had probably added the automated energy pull to make the Core Formation process easier, but it turned into a ticking time bomb for him. Zac inwardly cursed his mother for only dropping a few vague hints before leaving, but there was nothing to do about it. His plan held many uncertainties, and he was already prepared to make some adjustments on the go. This was just another bump in the road.

The small glowing orb entered the hatch without a hitch, and it transformed in a flash of light. The next second, Zac felt a weak but stable connection to the crystal sphere from within his Duplicity Core. The treasure had returned to its physical form. It was easy to forget, but a Cosmic Core was not a spiritual phenomenon like a Soul Aperture or Skill Fractals. When cultivators formed a Cosmic Core, they essentially grew a new organ. Mortals such as himself had to build one.

A mental command expanded the crystal sphere until he felt an intractable resistance from the outside. Zac performed some calculations, nodding with satisfaction. The less space he had for the Core Formation, the more difficult the process would become. He’d even prepared three scenarios depending on the situation.

The hidden space within the Duplicity Core wasn’t quite as big as Zac’s most optimal scenario, but it was still quite generous. He’d be able to follow his main scenario and even have some extra breathing room in case of mishaps or unexpected turn of events.

He’d already isolated his cave, but the [Hollow Core]’s fluctuations had stirred some nearby auras. The beasts’ meditative slumber had been disturbed, but they soon stilled. Zac was relieved though not surprised. If you woke up from every minor fluctuation inside the Calamity, you’d never get a wink of sleep. The process had taken quite some time, almost making him late. Zac took a breath before leaving the cave, just like he had the past six days.

The moon’s surface was currently drowned in the light of Life and Creation from the distant star. That soon changed as darkness rose from below, supplanting Life with Death.

Miasma surged, and the world was reduced to a dull monochrome as time seemingly ground to a halt. Zac flew off the edge, down toward the Oblivion Sun, before any beasts could react. He extracted tremendous speed from his Peak-mastery [Abyssal Phase], but it wasn’t enough to elude the locals. One consciousness after another latched onto him as he pierced the deathly corona.

Zac didn’t feel any killing intent from the observers—they likely thought him yet another fool consumed by greed after just a few days in the splinter’s presence. Having his movement skill forcibly dispelled by the rampant energies on the sun’s surface probably reinforced this impression. The Beast Kings wouldn’t laugh for long.

Death flooded his body as he fell through the sun’s outer layer, and the echoes of Oblivion created zones of extreme danger he desperately avoided. Their concentration was manageable this far out, but it was enough to awaken the Remnants. They had been stirring inside their cage for a week, and their energies were fast rising in response to the environment.

Zac tried to endure the corona’s fiery onslaught as long as possible but was soon forced to activate [Profane Exponents]. The floating skeletons climbed onto his back, and a protective shield formed around him. This was the main reason he targeted the splinter first. The absolute defenses of [Empyrean Aegis] were slightly higher, but it would have forced him to leave the pillars back on the moon. A single thought of the Late-stage Beast Kings would tear apart his protection.

The outer corona comprised roughly half the sun’s diameter and was made of Death-attuned Energy packed so tightly it mimicked flames. Beneath was a semi-solid layer similar to lava or a viscous ichor. Not even a Draugr was spared from the crazy amounts of Death that tried to tear him apart, but it was manageable.

More troubling was the Dao of Oblivion. It was far more pronounced this far in, enough for the mesh of Remnants inside the cage to separate. Splinters and shards entered a familiar war, where one side tried to break out while the other wanted to contain them. Three sets of Remnants fighting pushed the limits of what the cage could withstand, and Zac was alarmed to see bursts of energy leak into his Soul Aperture.

A hint of killing intent appeared in the auras when Zac pushed into the molten core. Zac couldn’t sense the situation outside, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the beasts had crawled out of their caves. It wouldn’t be long before the leaders were compelled to take action, and Zac knew exactly what would set them off.

Cracks appeared across the small pygmy skeletons as they did their best to block and divert the unrelenting inferno around him, but a scream of danger warned Zac that the true peril of the sun was about to strike. A pulse of pure Oblivion was bearing down on him. There was no time to worry about the fallout as Zac channeled Oblivion into his shoulders.

Conflict and Oblivion fused and formed a sphere of nothingness between his hands. It consumed any Death that came close and then merged with the approaching pulse. There was no way for Oblivion to destroy Oblivion, but they weren’t exactly the same. One was unbridled destruction, while the [Annihilation Sphere] was infused with Zac’s will.

The difference allowed Zac to extract enough Oblivion to create a safe passage through the pulse. Doing so tripled the size of the [Annihilation Sphere], and it was rapidly going out of control. Zac was ready for that and threw it out in front of him with all force he could muster. The sphere created a tunnel of nothingness before collapsing in a huge implosion that pulled Zac closer.

The miniature black hole was gone as quickly as it appeared, and Zac managed to use it to speed up. The experience was just like when he got the Shard of Creation inside the Twilight Ocean. It’d been in the heart of a volcano, releasing deadly pulses that he’d been forced to fight through.

Since then, Zac had grown a lot stronger, both his constitution and soul. It allowed him to control the uncooperative energies better, and the collision only cost him two of his fingertips. He could even have gone further and infused [Profane Exponents] with Oblivion to completely block the pulse.

Of course, doing so would do more harm than good. With his tight schedule, there simply hadn’t been time to do anything with the energy highways on his shoulders. He’d only had time to reinforce his [Thousand Lights Avatar] to the point it would hopefully withstand what was about to happen. As such, he was still forced to rely on the Dao Molds if he wanted to channel Creation or Oblivion into his skills.

And while the molds had improved since his successful attempt in his fight with Valsa, they still weren’t able to properly carry that kind of force.

Zac continued toward the star’s core, hoping to reach his target before it released another pulse. Things had worked out just like Zac hoped, but not everyone rejoiced about his success.

A furious roar shook the star, and Zac’s bones groaned when a tremendous aura crashed into him from outside. It clearly belonged to the ruler of the Oblivion Star, but Zac wasn’t phased in the slightest. He even used the pressure to speed up as he dug toward the core with wild abandon.

He’d known that using Oblivion Energy would warn the kings outside that things were different this time. That he wasn’t just a greedy fool overestimating his capabilities. Zac wryly smiled, realizing the latter might depend on who you asked. The remained that someone who could wield Oblivion held the key to stealing the Remnant.

A huge presence drew closer with speed that outclassed his own, though still within his calculations. The sun wasn’t that big, and he could already feel the Remnant ahead. If he absorbed the splinter before the Beast King caught up, then everything would be fine. In fact, he dared that guy to target him when he had a splinter-worth of Oblivion coursing through his body.

The splinter was just a hundred meters away now. The energy was unbearable by that point, and [Profane Exponents] couldn’t withstand the assault any longer. The skeletons crumbled, and the star’s energy dug into his body. Even his undead constitution started dying from the immense and uncontrollable aggression. Skin and limbs withered as a comforting yet terrifying cold gripped his soul.

Yet Zac pushed on, using his Dao and Hidden Nodes to fight back. He was almost there. The resistance was far greater this far into the star, and the tar-like ichor had almost turned into a solid. Zac was forced to dig his way forward, all while the sense of doom drew closer. Then, a scream of danger forced Zac to take drastic measures.

A huge, jagged blade giving off a profoundly ancient aura dug into the solidified energy before him, and the Branch of the War Axe allowed him to carve a scar over forty meters deep. Zac didn’t even have time to finish the swing before he’d turned into an abyssal wraith that squeezed into the crack. He even left the practice axe behind, not daring to waste even a fraction of a second.

It was lucky as well, as a huge taloned claw tore into the star right at his heels. A whole section of the Oblivion Sun was ripped out, exposing the local tyrant. It was a skeletal monstrosity over one hundred meters long, its bones covered in black flames that resembled fur. It reminded Zac of the Gwyllgi back home, except for its size and two wings made of burning bones that didn’t seem attached to its main body.

Zac didn’t know if it had been raised from the bones of a fallen beast or if it was something that was naturally born that way. Either case, the Beast King emitted a murderous aura, and it wasn’t sparing any effort to deal with him. It was willing to carve off a good chunk of the star to kill Zac.

Thankfully, it wasn’t quick enough, and Zac appeared at the edge of the scar just as the claw passed. Deep wounds covered his whole body after forcibly using his movement skill in such an unstable environment, but surface wounds beat being swiped by a Late-stage Beast King.

A deadly flame grew in the Gwyllgi’s maw, but Zac didn’t bother activating any defensive layers. Only [Pillar of Desolation] had a chance at withstanding the thing, and that skill couldn’t be activated in this environment. Zac desperately dug on as more Oblivion was extracted from his mind.

A second [Annihilation Sphere] tore through the inner core while swallowing the ambient Oblivion. Zac was fast losing control, but he furiously held onto his will. The splinter was just ahead, and Zac grinned upon sensing it had detached itself from the sun’s core. Did it feel its siblings, perhaps, and wanted to swim over?

Zac was soon forced to throw away the [Annihilation Sphere], and it erased a huge swathe of the magma barring his path. His mind screamed of danger, and not because of the sun rapidly destabilizing from the punishment it had been forced to endure. The Gwyllgi’s all-out attack was fast drawing closer.

Zac wouldn’t make it in time, so he forcibly activated [Abyssal Phase] again, even if he knew it would damage the fractal.

It was narrowly enough to cross the void created by his outburst of Oblivion. On the other side was a smooth sphere of solid black. Zac didn’t know exactly what it was, but he suspected it was a special shell protecting the sun’s core—a shell that was now cracked, leaking vast amounts of energy. Zac could feel it just on the other side, and his arm squeezed into the crack. The world slowed as extinction poured into his arm, and a smile spread across Zac’s lips.

So far, so good.

74

ALL FOR ONE’S DREAM

The usually crowded Road of Repentance was abandoned. The hawkers had abandoned their stalls where they stood, and the enshrined patrons were without reverend attendants. A suffocating silence held the road in its grip, and his approach only amplified it. The sound of his boots stepping on the glazed tiles were annihilated, creating the illusion of illusion.

The same was true for the birdcage hanging from a chain wrapped around his left arm. Oblivion swept away the anguished screams of the men and women trapped inside. They only got to live on in his mind for a brief instant before being forever erased from the river of time. Some thought him a ghost, and while his corporeity was still there, they weren’t exactly wrong. Since he accepted this path, he’d become the ghost of future’s sin.

It all had to be torn down before it was too late.

The walls of Emyr’s Sanctuary rose toward the sky, a bastion of salvation that served as a both administrative and spiritual capital for eons. False salvation, certainly, but he still felt a muted pang of sorrow that his path led him back here. The fact he felt anything at all proved the centuries spent inside these vermillion walls weren’t so easily erased.

Atop the ramparts stood the Celestial Guard, thousands of them decked in glistening armor. He could feel the fear, the hatred, the despair. The four outer sanctuaries had already fallen by his hands, where utter nothingness was left in his wake. Yet they stood tall, remembering their training and their oaths.

Above the central gate floated a vaguely familiar face, her expression marred by sorrow rather than the mixed bag of the soldiers below her. He tried to remember who this priestess was, but he couldn’t match it with those he knew during his years in Emyr’s Sanctuary. Then again, it was all so blurry. She clearly recognized him yet dared to fly out of the protective barrier to speak with him.

“Lord Norosa, you have to stop!”

“Norosa… A name I haven’t heard in a long time,” he spoke, his voice gravelly from disuse.

“It’s not too late to turn back. You are inviting a Calamity. On yourself, on the citizens of the Holy Empire!” the priestess entreated. “You said the core tenet of the clergy was to serve. Is this how you serve?”

So, it was her.

To think that little nun became an Ecclesiastic Tributary in a short 800 years. Sina, was it? He remembered the young acolyte who had been so full of righteousness, openly catechizing her local bishop over his excess. How she’d approached his fellow inquisitors to mete out justice against a fellow member of the cloth.

Come to think of it, it was around that time his faith had started to waver, when he’d begun noticing the cracks beneath the vermillion veneer. She hadn’t changed much except for a few marks left by the passing of time and the burden of office. He was surprised someone like this had risen so far through the ranks in a few centuries.

“Turn back?” he said, a dark smile spreading. “I severed my name along with my past. I sacrificed it all to build a bridge toward the future. To cleanse these rotten lands, I will become an avatar of extermination, even if I have to sacrifice my immortal soul. Only through destruction can rebirth take place. That is how I serve.”

Confusion, anger, and revulsion took her when she looked at the cage. He wondered if she recognized the men and women who’d become fuel for the undertaking. If she did, she didn’t seem to care about their fate. Was this young woman truly an enemy or someone pushed to the forefront because of their tenuous connection?

Sina opened her mouth as struggle appeared on her face.

“I’ve recently learned what happened, what the church tried to cover up. But you should better understand the truth than anyone! It’s all because of those things,” she said. “It twists minds, turns devout servants into madmen. Keeping the five sins of extermination sealed is the burden our church has borne for millennia, all to keep the citizens safe!”

He only shook his head in response. So the little nun thought it was revenge.

“Our training and piety don’t make us immutable,” Sina pressed on, her pure eyes pleading. “The sin of extermination never lets up, and our mortal minds can’t fully block its immortal will. Mistakes were made, and tragedy struck, but the events at Polsara are not indicative of the church as a whole! If you fulfill the prophecy, everything we’ve worked toward will be undone. Emyr’s sacrifice will be undone.”

It looked like she still didn’t understand the truth. Mortals weren’t the only ones who could be corrupted by the immortal will of extermination. Emyr’s sacrifice had long since been undone by the twisted will of Emyr himself.

“That’s exactly what has to happen,” he said, pointing [Edge of Oblivion] against the city. “Right or wrong, the chains have to be broken. I have set out on this path, and I will see it to the end. For our history, I hope you will give way. The citizens will need guidance after the collapse.”

“You know I cannot do that,” Sina said, tears running down her cheeks as five halos sprung up behind her back.

The halos grew to cover the whole gate, each stretching hundreds of meters into the air. Sky shook, and one red pillar of light after another descended as the Celestial Array answered her call. He looked upon the scene with equanimity. The situation was lamentable, but it wasn’t enough to create a ripple in his heart.

Four roars of extermination entered his sword, and a wave of Oblivion rippled forward. The young nun channeled the whole sanctuary’s accumulated faith in a desperate attempt to block, and the warriors atop the walls formed an interlocking wall of shields. It wasn’t enough.

Sina, along with his memories of her, were consumed, and the outer wall of Emyr’s Sanctuary was no more. Four emaciated sinners had nothing more to give, and their final wails of pain and release echoed in his mind as ash drifted out of the birdcage. He barely noticed. The wall’s collapse had finally let him sense it.

The fifth artifact of extermination. The key to stopping the resurrection of the mad god.

The fourth Splinter of Oblivion didn’t assault Zac with a confusing and endless series of miserable fates. It only showed him three, each far more detailed than those before it. The Grand Inquisitor Nosora, who sacrificed everything to save his country. To destroy the nightmare created from a god’s soul utterly tainted by the Splinters of Oblivion.

The Seven Desolates Emperor, who turned his small duchy into a powerful empire through a ruthless campaign spanning millennia. The Oblivion Dragon who hunted splinters to enhance its bloodline.

The goals of these three were completely different, as were their temperaments. The one thing in common was that all four held four Splinters of Oblivion in their souls. Furthermore, while they struggled against the madness, they still held onto their purpose. Mostly. Whether it was Nosora, the emperor, or the dragon, they had lost most of their emotions.

In their case, it wasn’t without their awareness. It was the price they willingly paid for their Dao, for their goals. They had severed pieces of their soul to feed the Remnants, much like some cultivators severed their seven emotions and six desires.

Was that what the Heart of Oblivion wanted to show him? That it was fine if he wanted to borrow their power, but a price had to be paid. That was simply the Law of Balance. It was a stark difference from the visions he endured inside the Orom World. Those scenes had been filled with hopelessness and defeat, like the splinters were trying to drown him in despair and doubt. His Dao Heart had almost crumbled then, and the experience was the main reason he’d been so eager to practice his [Void Vajra Sublimation].

Now, it almost felt like all that hard work was for nothing.

Had the Remnants realized his Dao Heart had grown far stronger since and instead opted for negotiation? Was it another trap, an attempt to steer him down a path of no return? Ultimately, it didn’t matter much, and this wasn’t the time to figure things out. The splinter had already entered his body, and Zac ushered it toward his Soul Aperture before it could unleash too much destruction on his body.

Meanwhile, he furiously rebuffed any Oblivion Energy that got close to his Duplicity Core. He even sacrificed some of his hold on the splinter to create a durable barrier of Mental Energy aimed at protecting the hatch.

The world sped up again, where an urgent warning of danger and shrieking fury greeted him. The undead Gwyllgi understood what had transpired, and its murderous intent was powerful enough to make the whole star quake. Not that it needed any help in that department. The splinter had infiltrated the Stellar Core for who knows how long, and Zac could sense how its vast energies were fast going out of control.

The situation inside his soul mirrored the chaos outside, with the splinter releasing torrential amounts of Oblivion while trying to break into the prison. Luckily, Zac had both experience and the strength of a Three Fates Soul this time around and simultaneously reinforced the prison and rebuffed the new splinter.

However, a chorus of madness and destruction threatened to overwhelm even his reinforced Dao Heart. The four splinters formed a powerful resonance, resulting in a far greater impact on his mind. And the more the splinter’s Oblivion tainted his soul, the harder it became to resist the corruption.

The screams of danger grew more urgent as a black sphere shot out of the Gwyllgi’s mouth and entered the ball of destructive flames already bearing down on him. The sphere made the fireball condense until it was no more than five meters across, just a small ember in front of the deathly sun. The aura it radiated filled Zac with terror. He’d grossly underestimated just how angry he’d made the Late-stage Beast King.

The crazed beast had actually spat out its Beast Core to reinforce the attack.

Doing so was an act of all-out aggression. The attack was extremely deadly, containing the full force of the Beast King’s cultivation base, yet it also carried great danger for the attacker. Damage to the Beast Core could mean millennia of weakness until the damage was repaired. If it broke, the Beast King was crippled. In other words, the Gwyllgi was putting everything on the line to kill him.

Seeing the situation, Zac opted to go for broke. Madness and determination gleamed in his abyssal eyes as he dragged the accumulating storm of Oblivion out of his soul, steering it into his hand. Pain wracked him as small cracks covered his skin, but there was nothing else to do. A beam of pure nothingness shot out of his hand and carved a tunnel straight through the Stellar Core. Zac rushed inside.

The sudden attack was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and the sun went supernova. The core exploded, unleashing a shockwave that tore apart space like it was made of paper. Zac was right at the epicenter, though pulses of Oblivion consumed most of the force crashing into him.

The same was true for the incoming attack. The Gwyllgi’s desperate move tore through the sun’s outer layers like it was nothing, but the following shockwave was another thing entirely. It was filled with the energy of a sun corrupted by Oblivion for who knows how long, and then further augmented by Zac’s outburst.

The two forces collided, forming spatial tears that stretched for miles. A scream of pain and anger pierced Zac’s already beleaguered soul, leaving a set of surface cracks across both Soul Cores. The sense of danger had mostly abated, proving his plan worked.

Zac was killing two birds with one stone. He needed to vent the unbearable amounts of Oblivion before his Soul Aperture was overwhelmed, and he needed to deal with the incoming threats. Perhaps you could say three birds with one stone, even if the last benefit levied a painful price across his body.

Skin tore and bones snapped as deadly force pushed him out of the inner mantle and the collapsing star. A second shockwave followed the first as the black sun expanded. The explosion accelerated Zac, turning him into a streak of black.

A streak that moved right toward the golden sun in the distance.

Zac breathed out in relief upon seeing his guess had been true. Only one consciousness with a strong mark of Life had inspected him as he approached the deathly star. Similarly, none of the Life-attuned Beasts targeted him with killing intent as he moved on the splinter. Why would they? Life and Death didn’t mix, and having two opposing suns locked in orbit made cultivation harder. The Life-attuned Beasts would probably have destroyed the deathly sun themselves if they had the strength.

Then, a creature finally emerged, and Zac’s heart shuddered as he prepared for the worst. The thing was an enormous elemental, slightly resembling a jellyfish. Dozens of intensely golden lights shimmered in its “head,” and its long tendrils crackled with powerful bursts of Life. Its aura was a match to the Gwyllgi’s, and Zac could feel he was at the center of its attention.

Zac gritted his teeth, preparing to use another salvo of Oblivion to meet the Beast King. But the thing passed him by, only spitting one of the golden lights in his direction before moving on. Zac was confused at first but soon realized its goal. The jellyfish was targeting the Gwyllgi’s Beast Core, which had been thrown far away by the supernova.

The Late-stage Beast Core had emerged almost unscathed from the clash. Only a few small marks could be seen on the core’s surface, though it had lost much of its accumulated energy. Zac hoped the explosion would disintegrate the core and cripple the beast, but this situation wasn’t too bad.

A Late-stage Beast Core of such a powerful beast was undoubtedly an amazing cultivation resource for the jellyfish. It could probably use its opposing element to hone its core, just like how Zac cultivated using his [Nine Reincarnations Manual]. Better yet, it belonged to its biggest rival, making it too tempting to ignore.

Zac could probably destroy the incoming attack with another burst of Oblivion. But he wanted to use as little Oblivion Energy as possible since paying the splinter’s price with outside resources wasn’t easy. He had no birdcage with souls to drain to fuel the destruction. Instead, he threw out a large boulder filled with Explosive Talismans and Miasma Crystals before turning into an Abyssal Wraith with Void Energy.

Using his Void Energy prevented most Oblivion Energy from sneaking into the Skill Fractal, but he still left a trail of Annihilation in his wake. A huge explosion erupted behind him as light and boulder collided, and Zac sighed as the small sphere emerged untouched from the clash. It veered toward him like a bloodhound.

He kept going, crashing into the Life-attuned flames. Searing pain filled him as Life poured into his body. Some aspects of his Void Vajra Constitution carried over through [Quantum Gate], but an undead being’s inherent revulsion toward Life trumped the effect of his Body Tempering Manual. He might be the Draugr who could best resist the poisonous rays of Life, but being in the middle of a Life-attuned sun was asking for trouble.

Yet Zac pushed on, using [Void Zone] to give himself some breathing room as he dug deeper. The light was almost upon him, but Zac was ready. A huge eruption of Oblivion consumed the light, creating a hundred-meter energy vacuum as everything was annihilated. The shockwave pushed Zac closer to the core, and he relaxed when his Specialty Core activated without giving him any trouble.

Life replaced Death as Draugr became human, and the burning flames closing in on him were no longer very threatening. The true threat came from the jellyfish far in the distance, who finally realized Zac wasn’t satisfied with wrecking just one of the suns.

Unfortunately, it had already made its move against the Gwyllgi. The jellyfish tried to hit its old nemesis while it was down and was now getting its just desserts. The Gwyllgi obviously understood what was going on, and Zac laughed when he saw it opt to block the jellyfish rather than target him again.

He pierced into the star using Oblivion, making much greater progress thanks to the overwhelming amount of energy in his body. The shard sensed the intrusion of its fated nemesis, and powerful waves of Creation pushed toward him as the Remnant fought back. Zac could tell it had detached already, shooting toward him like an arrow.

Zac’s whole Soul Aperture shook as the splinter tried to break free, either to attack the nearby shard or to break out its companions. The trapped Remnants were also going insane, and the runes keeping them trapped flickered precariously. A mental command opened the gates before it was too late, and six streaks of light raced into his Soul Aperture.

However, before the four splinters could unite against their mortal enemy, time slowed once more as Zac grasped an opalescent mark.

75

KARMA CONCLUDED

Three more lives passed before Zac’s eyes. The minstrel who sought to lift an ancient curse through Creation, the flickering flame who wished to become a sun, and the warrior who wanted dominion over Life and Creation to resurrect his daughter. Beings of great determination who turned the shards into engines for their desire.

The trio knew they were trading the vast longevity of a cultivator for a short moment of glory. A worthy sacrifice if they could turn their desires into reality. Like before, they were at the precipice of Atavism, believing that step to be the key to achieving their goal. The message of the visions was identical to the splinter’s, yet Zac’s heart wasn’t moved.

Zac was too occupied with his immediate concerns to worry about the future, and he used the first outburst of Creation to forge a powerful shell that blocked out the collapse of the golden sun. The Beast Kings drew closer with murderous intents, but his attention was fully on the situation in his Soul Aperture.

The shard had made a beeline for his mind after entering his body, sensing the dangerous situation of its brethren. It crashed into the fully-charged splinter like a meteor, and the collision unleashed a flood of energy into his aperture. The two enormous soul spirals were spinning to the point of almost going out of control, and they couldn’t absorb the efflux quickly enough to prevent damaging his cores.

The Remnants remained indifferent to the collateral damage they caused and were already rearing for a second exchange. Zac furiously held the Remnants back with everything he had while pulling two threads of Oblivion and Creation into his shoulders. The energy highways happily accepted the overflow and subtly transformed the energies before releasing them into his chest.

The process had started, and a deep rumble in the sky penetrated the roar of two collapsing stars. Zac was filled with a sense of déjà vu upon seeing the Remnants fearfully starting to struggle. It was no wonder the Heart of Oblivion and Spark of Creation failed to become the equivalent of Supremacies, even if they were unique entities singularly tuned to their respective Daos.

Their obsessions made them stupid, for lack of a better word. They didn’t learn, they didn’t change. The first set of Remnants he seized had been tricked the same way three times by now, yet they eagerly jumped into the trap all the same. The birth of Chaos had begun, and there was no escape. Torrential amounts of energy were forcibly dragged out from the Remnants, and the churning ball in his chest was fast reaching its tipping point.

The world-ending clashes of Life and Death outside shook the Calamity as the two broken stars collided. The unique energy signature of Creation encountered Oblivion all around him, and he almost felt like he and the stars were one. Was this how Catheya felt upon harmonizing with the world?

Possibly, though Zac knew it wasn’t the same. Harmonization was likely impossible for him to begin with. How would you possibly connect with the Heavens without any affinities? His perception was from having his soul overloaded by Oblivion and Creation, just like the stars had been for centuries.

Thousands of eruptions added to the turmoil around him every second, each powerful enough to rip Beast Kings to shreds. The orbiting moons had already collapsed, and Zac could guess the fates of their inhabitants. Only the two leaders remained, but not even they were able to easily endure the explosions. Yet they pressed toward him, their killing intent dense enough to twist the air.

With the shard snatched just like the splinter, the Gwyllygi no longer had any reason to impede its nemesis. Instead, they found themselves in the same boat and teamed up to deal with him. Zac guessed they wanted to make him spit out the Remnants before moving them to a new set of suns. Or perhaps finally consume the items themselves.

They were much too late for that.

The storm raged, the sky rumbled, yet Zac was removed from it all. He was a storm unto his own, where his latent energy emanations kept the much larger tempest at bay. At first, it had been an unstable mix of Oblivion and Creation, but that changed as the opposing forces were reluctantly fused into one. A broken peak was temporarily made whole as Chaos graced the Calamity with its presence.

The world suddenly stilled, and even the Late-stage Beast Kings halted their advance. It was like an ancestor had descended upon the realm, and the Calamity’s Dao offered obeisance. It didn’t dare create a scene when faced with the true Terminus of its existence. Zac’s body no longer mirrored the world outside. One was calm; the other was in absolute disorder.

The vast amounts of energy had formed a fourth Glimpse of Chaos, and all his breakthroughs since the Orom World had done little to withstand its effect. He could only hold on to it for a short window, and he needed to make it count. Thousands of possibilities and urges filled his mind, but he held onto a seed of clarity as he corralled the drained Remnants back into their prison.

He could tell this was the last time. The cage was teetering on the brink of collapse, with the runes barely having withstood six Remnants fighting for a minute. Four sets would be able to break out anytime they wanted after they’d recovered from the extraction. Hopefully, they wouldn’t figure that out before Zac found the fifth pair and was ready for Atavism.

Whatever happened at that point would break the status quo of the past two decades. One is an eternal curse, two is a calamity. Five is Atavism, where five lingering resentments form a consciousness. He didn’t know why he knew, but that would be a tipping point. He would either take control of the Remnants or be consumed by their immortal will. No matter the outcome, there would be no need for a prison.

The people in the visions had known the same thing and felt it was an unavoidable tribulation to accomplish their goals. Was that the trap within those visions? Were the Remnants trying to give him a false sense of security, all the while leading him to his doom? Zac shook his head. He’d still keep going even if it were a trap. He believed Be’Zi wasn’t trying to harm him when she gave him that mission.

More importantly, he believed in himself and his ability to turn a disaster into an opportunity. In either case, it was a worry for later. He had decades to shore up his heart and soul before the deadline. The ethereal tranquility of the Calamity only lasted a moment before a boundless presence forced its way into the scene. Gold and black flames were pushed away as clouds painted in blue and the imperial gold of the System descended.

The System’s presence subdued the Dao itself, and the Calamity fully ground to a halt. The remnant energies of the broken stars turned into two dense clouds about to form a hurricane. Zac could picture the kind of mayhem such a development would bring to the Calamity. Between such vast amounts of amassed energy and the infusion of Creation and Oblivion, it wouldn’t be too surprising if another source of Chaos was born.

Of course, Zac could tell it wasn’t fated to be.

Chaos raged through his body, his efforts at containing it in his chest almost useless. It left immense damage in its wake, but the torture brought a temporary state of clarity. The Remnants had slowly transformed the stars, but they were still over 90% Life and Death. And the Oblivion and Creation it held was fractured, incomplete. It wouldn’t be enough to converge into one.

The hurricane was destined to collapse before it formed, unleashing an unprecedented storm. The insight filled Zac with lamentation. The situation was an expression of the difficulty of his chosen path, a reminder of the dangers he’d face even if he’d finally reached this step. But the scene held the seed of possibility, a small ray of hope.

Zac’s gaze turned, peering through endless layers of restrictions and energy. Far in the distance, a much greater storm raged. A storm that would make even Autarch tread with care, where Oblivion and Creation were more common than Life and Death—the true face of the Calamity.

The Dao of Chaos allowed him to see the whole picture. Of course, he wasn’t the System’s only source of Chaos. The whole Calamity was a huge Chaos Generator that occasionally exposed a piece of the tapestry before destabilizing. Zac’s attention shifted to the two tyrants who floated a few hundred meters away.

Their bodies trembled under his gaze, but they could not leave when held in place by the System.

“I’m sorry. You are innocent bystanders in this,” Zac said. “I ruined your home and cut off your cultivation. But in a way, I saved you from a tragedy down the road. As such, our Karma has concluded.”

A rumble in the sky expressed the System’s impatience, and Zac looked up with a smile as the Glimpse of Chaos emerged from his chest. “You know the rules. This time, I’m not asking for much.”

He extracted a mote from the churning ball of Chaos, infusing it with his desire as he let it drift out from him. A gate appeared, and Zac wordlessly stepped through, leaving the Calamity behind. He found himself standing on the peak of Mount Illumination. The sky was already overcast and full of lightning, as though the System had anticipated his move.

Zac wasn’t sure if the gate was made possible through the Dao of Chaos or the System’s approval. The true nature of Chaos was ultimately too difficult to grasp. He was only awarded glimpses of the truth, but the truth wasn’t what it seemed when it came to this particular peak. All was flux.

That was fine. He hadn’t been sure if his idea would work, but he’d figured if Chaos could take him from the Orom to Zecia, then surely a short skip back to his mansion would be easy. If it failed, he would simply have jumped down toward the exit, though that would have delayed him by at least an hour. And there was no telling how the two tyrants would act after the System got what it wanted and left.

That wasn’t a headache he needed while advancing to the next step.

Being temporarily connected to the Dao of Chaos confirmed the validity of his idea, but he didn’t have much time. Zac extracted a second Chaos Mote from the ball and gently dragged it into his body, toward his Duplicity Core.

Chaos was the key to forming his core, but that didn’t mean he’d suddenly decided to form a Chaos Core. His blueprint was still the same Trinity Core, Quantum Core, or Void Core, depending on which aspect you wanted to focus on. And before the Chaos Mote could be added to that plan, it needed to be transformed.

The inherent unpredictability in the Chaos Mote struggled against being controlled, but a flood of the Branches of Pale Seal and Kalpataru rapidly bound it to Zac’s chariot. To ensure nothing went wrong, he also activated his bloodline to form a protective layer of Void Energy around the mote.

The Chaos Mote furiously resisted the foreign insights, but its energy was limited while Zac’s soul was overloaded with borrowed strength. Eventually, it shuddered and split apart, like a cell undergoing mitosis. The two forces radiated the unmistakable aura of Oblivion and Creation, then the attunement shifted again. Left were the Daos of Life and Death.

You could argue that he’d ruined the magical nature of the Chaos Mote. After all, it was easy to split a Grand Dao into its lower components but almost impossible to take it the other way. That was doubly true for a broken peak like Chaos. The motes were just like the Primal Dao back in the Twilight Ocean, which likely was why the System was so impatient to get the glimpses. Wait too long, and the ambient Dao would sully their truths.

Still, the two little swirls of incredibly condensed truths contained something crucial, something that put it at the same level as the Supreme treasures he’d prepared for today—potential. It was an energy that once existed as the Terminus of two of his Daos. That meant something, even when devolved into Life and Death.

You could see it from the simple fact that the two clouds of energy didn’t act like what you’d normally see when bringing the Daos of Life and Death together. They calmly floated into the Duplicity Core’s hatch. A small storm already raged inside from his opposing Daos. Life clashed with Death, urged on by the Branch of the War Axe.

That all stopped when the refined Chaos Mote entered the [Hollow Core]. The energies mixed, and the violent eruptions were quelled. Not even the Dao of Conflict could trigger the two Daos that snuggled together in an unnatural embrace.

The world lit up as a bolt of lightning struck the ground in front of Zac, but he ignored it. The System could wait a bit longer. Zac kept the Glimpse of Chaos close to his chest as he extracted a third mote. It was refined and pushed into his hatch, further stabilizing the situation.

A fourth mote soon followed, but the fifth would have to be the last. It was a matter of balance. Just forming the glimpse left him in a bad way. Every mote extracted was like a hurricane unleashed in his body, compounding the damage. A little bit of mutilation was fine in the pursuit of benefits, but he had to be in a condition to follow up with the actual Core Formation.

“Thank you,” Zac said, finally releasing the Glimpse of Chaos.

It floated away from him, showering the peak in the superlative truths of Chaos. The mountain rumbled, and the Dao of Samsara groaned as it unraveled. Samsara was a path of rules, creating an ecosystem of Life and Death governed by the laws of Karma and Order. Chaos was its antithesis, and its influence was like a rapidly spreading poison.

The sky shuddered as the ghost temples fought back. Dharmic hymns tried to impose their will on the peak, but all were forced into stillness as a golden pillar of lightning slammed into the glimpse. The System didn’t care about the struggle for the meaning of Life and Death. It only cared about the insights within the glimpse. Zac looked on, trying to memorize some aspects for himself.

But his comprehension grew blurry and distant as the System absorbed the glimpse. Zac had known this would happen, so he wasn’t disappointed. Who knew? The comprehension might have left a mark on his mind even if it wasn’t clear right now. Just like the two motes inside the [Hollow Core].

The process only lasted a few seconds before the glimpse was gone. Clouds dispersed, with the System uninterested in staying behind to observe what came next. Without the pressure, the tremors returned, and Zac snorted as one ghost temple after another around him crumbled. The Dao of Chaos had flooded the peak before being refined by the System’s cleansing lightning.

The Sangha’s connection to this abandoned peak deep in the Perennial Vastness had already been tenuous, and this was enough to forcibly sever Karma. The Dao of Samsara collapsed and split into its base components. The transformation wasn’t an integral part of Zac’s plans, only a small bonus. A safeguard to ensure no Dharmic loopholes snuck into his Cosmic Core, and it would hopefully let his mansion extract a bit more energy.

A small shockwave from within made Zac groan and turn to the situation within the Duplicity Core. The energies were still playing nice, but he ultimately pushed a whole lot of energy into a cramped space. Even if the mutual hostility between Life and Death had been temporarily resolved, some commotion was to be expected.

Furthermore, this fragile harmony was just a temporary truce. The transformed motes were unstable and couldn’t remain in their current state for long. It was just a matter of time before they decayed, until they were no different from his own Daos. Before that happened, he needed to have set his foundation.

The whole reason he took the risk of incorporating the Remnants in his Core Formation was to create this window of opportunity. He’d tried perfecting the plan for years, but there was a huge problem that couldn’t be solved without taking some risks. The very first step of his Core Formation, where he’d fuse the Supreme treasures into a nucleus, was filled with risk and uncertainty.

Getting past that first hurdle meant he’d have a stable foundation to build upon. From there, it’d be fine if the core was temporarily unbalanced as he added one layer of energy after another. The nucleus would keep the ship afloat until he remedied the issues and stabilized the core.

That’s where the Chaos Mote came in. Utilizing the Dao of Chaos this way wasn’t enough to permanently fuse Life and Death. Someone would already have formed a Life-Death core if that were the case—for example, the Undead Empire. There was no way they couldn’t source a little bit of Chaos if they put their mind to it.

The Peak of Chaos was still broken, and a core like that would fall apart before it was created. But the refined motes were enough to temporarily calm the Daos of Life and Death until he could permanently solve their incompatibility with the Void.

Zac turned toward his manor, which was already drawing torrential amounts of energy into its domain. The energy was so dense that the air twisted, and its attunement felt so familiar that it could just as well have been his own. The power of the fourteenth-echelon was already proving its worth. The scene was set, and everything was in place.

Now, it was time to see if he could pull off a miracle.

76

FATED

Kruta ripped his sword out of the hunter’s chest, the jerking motion making him grunt with pain. The man’s eyes were still filled with fire and desperation as his corpse joined the others on the ground. Two were already burning from the heat rising from below. Kruta shook his head, briefly wondering if these souls would enter the lands like his ancestors did. For their sake, he hoped not.

Embers and ash filled the sky, casting the world in darkness. A few streaks of light falling from above were the only source of light. Deadly meteors that would incinerate everything where they landed. A few far off shouts indicated the others weren’t far away. He needed to get going.

The festering wounds had reopened from the struggle, and he was running dangerously low on Cosmic Energy. Flying would have been impossible even if the ability hadn’t been sealed, and urging his harried legs into a run was like trying to get an elderly Greenox to move. But a wall of deeper black rose toward the sky, and the flatlands had given way to a steep incline. He was almost there.

Kruta stuffed more of the acrid roots that’d kept him alive and tormented for so long into his mouth. He extracted what little spirituality they had left as he willed his feet to keep moving. His vision was distorted from the toxins, but his extended abuse had at least given him partial immunity. The dead attackers were soon left behind and forgotten, replaced by the constant worry that had filled him since being spat out in this hellscape.

Things hadn’t played out at all as he’d imagined. The young princess of the Tayns was nowhere to be found inside the Thousandflame Galley, or any other Tayn representative for that matter. Kruta didn’t even know if he was inside the warship, or if he’d been transported somewhere else during his two weeks in burning limbo.

This broken world was some sort of prison colony, where descendants of those who had angered Thousandflames Eccentric toiled away in ashen suffering. He still didn’t know how the Tayns had exposed their plans, but it was clear they didn’t approve. Every day, Kruta prayed he was the only one from the tribe who had been punished for their arrogance, and the fact that he still hadn’t ran into any of his tribesmen was his greatest source of comfort.

As for the treacherous whispers in the back of his mind that the tribe had been incinerated instead of captured? Kruta refused to listen. He held onto his faith, and the carrot dangled before him.

Kruta hadn’t encountered much trouble the first day, even if his mind had been a confused mess. He had been trying to make sense of the situation, and the fact that his Spatial Treasures were sealed didn’t help. It was in that state a trio of foragers had stumbled upon him. They’d been wary of this stranger but took pity on him and shared some of their knowledge.

The three eked out a living by digging through the ashes for spiritual roots. The ambient energy was abundant but filled with fire that would consume you from within if you imbibed too much. Besides, it was impossible for most to completely forgo normal sustenance. But in this kind of broken world, food was extremely scarce. Kruta had followed them for five days, and everything had been fine until something changed.

All three tried to murder him in his sleep, going so far as to sacrifice limbs and longevity to accomplish their goal. Kruta had already been prepared for a possible attack, and his superior training allowed him to pull through even without his weapons. At first, he’d thought they simply attacked him to rob his corpse, but questioning them exposed the truth.

The foragers had heard a voice just before attacking, and it had a simple message for the whole realm—freedom for death. Kill Kruta the Great before he crosses the Worldfall Ridge, and the sins of your ancestors will be forgiven. The foragers hadn’t hesitated to risk it all for a chance to escape their burning prison.

Since then, Kruta had become an enemy of the world, where every single native did everything in their power to eradicate him. Those who could survive this purgatory weren’t weak, and there were even Peak Hegemons in this world. Their training was subpar, and their equipment was garbage, but their numerical advantage wasn’t something you could just overcome with grit and skill.

But he’d survived. Days turned to months, and months to years as Kruta advanced toward the Worldfall Ridge. He lost count of the times he’d narrowly escaped death, either by avoiding traps or narrowly eking out a victory against powerful and desperate foes. His only shot at survival was to win the cruel game set up by the Thousandflame Eccentric.

Kruta didn’t mind. He cherished the opportunity, which had turned into his mental support. The Tayns loved to test fates. It still wasn’t certain his suffering was solely meant as a punishment. He’d never received any message, but it was possible he would be let go if he survived. He already missed the opportunity to join his buddy in the Left Imperial Palace, but he didn’t care so long as his people weren’t hurt.

And he was almost there. He could hear the voices draw closer and summoned strength he didn’t know he had as he kept climbing. His body was drained beyond a breaking point, his pathways like charred strings. His ancestor had nothing more to give, and Kruta was forced to seal the spirit inside his mind to prevent it from collapsing. Yet his legs kept going, fueled by desire and iron will. He resisted the suppression, and the peak was soon in view.

Then there was nothing more to ascend. The winding path turned into sheer wall, a black rock so hot that smoke created a curtain that hid his presence. His feet were lead, and they refused to move again now that they had stopped. He threw away his commandeered balsawood swords and grabbed the wall.

Sizzling and searing pain tried to make him give in, but Kruta wouldn’t break. He sacrificed a layer of skin for each step as he continued his journey. Did seconds pass or did hours? Was he alive or was he dead? Kruta didn’t know.

Then, darkness turned to light as he pushed through the smoke and dust. Seeing a blue sky was almost enough to make him pass out, but he summoned a final burst of energy to drag himself up from the edge and crawl onto a flat surface. A smile of contentment spread across his face as the flickering flame of his being finally winked out.

He had done it. He’d beaten the game, and his tribe would be safe.

Burning flames shattered the darkness, and Kruta released a pent-up roar of fury. He was already dead, so why couldn’t they leave him be? He had done what was asked of him! This treatment was excessive. He didn’t care. He’d give these bastards a good punch even if his ancestral soul were incinerated.

Wait, why did he have hands?

“Ah? What’s going on?” Kruta muttered, blankly looking down at his very much corporeal hands.

Only then did he realize he was no longer atop the Worldend Ridge. The pain and sickness that followed him for years was gone, and his pathways had changed from burnt-out twigs to threads of steel. The ancestor was stabilized, and his aura was incredibly vigorous, though he still slept inside Kruta’s Soul Aperture.

The situation inside his body looked good, but the scenery around him quashed Kruta’s excitement. He’d been placed in the middle of what looked like a coliseum, and he could sense brutal auras from behind the steel gates. His heart shuddered, and his will almost collapsed from a terrifying premonition. Had the Thousandflame Eccentric brought him back to life only to have him play another game?

Kruta roused his spirit as he turned toward the closest gate. He wouldn’t give in. He would fight to the bitter end.

“Feisty. Not bad.”

The voice came from every direction, and it felt like the roar of a thousand suns.

“G-greetings, great mistress,” Kruta stuttered, his budding momentum gone.

It was one thing to fight to the death with beasts or prisoners, but there was only one thing to do when facing one of the Three Scourges. Even Supremacies were wary of these lunatics, so a bit of groveling wouldn’t shame the ancestors. Kruta wasn’t afraid; he was just being smart.

“I—ah. I’m very sorry if we’ve offended you and the esteemed Tayns.”

“Esteemed Tayns, huh? That wasn’t what you said back then?” The eccentric laughed as a screen appeared in the middle of the arena.

Kruta felt his vision close in as he saw himself appear, surrounded by withered roots and corpses of the First Heaven. He heard himself talk with Zac, discussing their options.

‘Don’t say it, you bastard!’ Kruta inwardly cried, wanting nothing more than to go back in time and punch himself in his big mouth.

“Pretty famous? That’s the understatement of the century,” his projection guffawed. “Those lunat—”

The scene didn’t continue from there, and Kruta found himself alone in the arena again. A storm raged in Kruta’s mind, where part of him was cursing that flaky Realm Spirit. It acted so high and mighty, saying his seals were impregnable. But what did that matter if he gave in when faced with true monsters? Kruta couldn’t believe the old bastard had spied on the chat of two juniors and then shared it with the Tayns.

Another part of his mind was trying to devise a road to survival, but he could only see one path forward.

“It was my mistake! I am willing to bear all punishment for my actions, so I beg your eminence to spare the Greenleaf Tribe,” Kruta shouted as he slammed to his knees.

“Your tribe? They are fine. We left the Ralphi Continent right after you came aboard,” the voice scoffed. “You think I’m so bored I’d go around bullying a bunch of juniors? I can’t believe this. I’m gone for a few hundred thousand years, and the family’s reputation is in the gutter when I return. Those brats back home really need a talking to.”

Kruta almost cried in relief upon hearing the tribe was fine, but joy was followed by sorrow. He wasn’t out of the woods. This unreasonable elder was one of the main reasons for the Tayns’ wretched reputation, yet she wanted to blame it on the younger generations? His mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words came out.

He was afraid to say the wrong thing, something that would trigger this lunatic. What if she turned the ship around or sent him back to that purgatory for a second round of torture?

“You stumbled onto an opportunity and created a string of fate that shouldn’t exist,” Mistress Thousandflame said. “You should know, our family’s learned to be quite attentive to fate. So I asked that old goat, Sendor, why a Karmic Thread emerged from his realm and latched onto my little niece. What if one of our old enemies had returned? I figured I would deal with this mess on my way back.”

Sweat poured down Kruta’s back from the realization that he’d truly been targeted by the Thousandflame Eccentric, almost resulting in him being made another example. The fact he and his clan hadn’t been turned to fertilizer for the Thousandflame Galley should be proof she’d learned he didn’t have any evil designs on Iz Tayn. But it couldn’t hurt to make sure.

“Kruta bears no ill will! I was told the young princess might be willing to help, and I agreed to contact her. That’s it, I promise!”

“Relax, will you?” the voice said with exasperation. “The way you’re acting makes me feel like I’m some old evildoer. I told you I’m not burning you or your little tribe.”

The Thousandflame Eccentric was deeply in denial, but Kruta would die before he pointed that out. Instead, he went with the flow, standing while trying to look grateful and impressed. Kruta felt those who said orcs were inflexible and crude would have to swallow their words after seeing his performance.

Or was it the human ancestry of his great-grandfather that had given him the adaptability needed to navigate this tribulation? He’d considered that a blemish on his name throughout his youth, but Kruta knew better than to blame his ancestry on any of his shortcomings today. Zac had showed with blinding clarity humans could be just as ferocious as the orcs.

“Who would have thought such exciting events would take place just as I returned to the Integrated Territories?” the Eccentric sighed. “My little niece is clearly meant for greatness. The boy you met inside that delusional old spirit’s realm isn’t half-bad, either. As for you… Eh. You’re okay, I guess?”

Veins bulged on Kruta’s forehead, and he narrowly held back a spicy response. He even managed to look thankful for the backhanded comment, though it felt more taxing than climbing that scalding wall.

“So, you want our help to reach the frontier,” the Thousandflame Eccentric continued. “That way, you can continue to hang onto this thread of borrowed fate. A bit shameless, wouldn’t you say?”

The rational part of his mind urged caution. He was almost there. But years of torment refused to be pushed down any longer. He would be shaming the ancestors if he kept his back bowed any further. Besides, no one liked a coward. Kruta sensed it was time to risk it all for a chance at glory.

“Kruta borrowed nothing! I earned this opportunity by risking my life, standing by my friends, and even going against the Seven Heavens!”

His voice echoed across the arena, possibly representing his final burst of defiance before his life winked out. Kruta steeled his heart. For no matter what came next, life or death, he’d stand tall. However, no flame descended to consume him.

“Finally, you found your courage,” Thousandflames laughed. “Good! I was starting to wonder if the primal flame in your soul had been extinguished.”

Kruta knew his guess had been right. The Tayns were battle maniacs, and being too obsequious could result in having your fate tested. Kruta wracked his brain to figure out what to do next, but his thoughts scattered when the most beautiful orc he’d ever seen appeared before him.

Her muscles were refined beyond perfection, her bushy eyebrows capturing the deadly beauty of a raging fire across grassy seas. Fiery runes covered her sanguine skin, containing the deepest truths of the true fire of the universe. Her eyes were striking green, reminding Kruta of home, the plains, and of war.

She held no weapons, but why should she need any? She was already a weapon refined beyond perfection. The faces of his fiancées rapidly faded as Kruta took in the true expression of deadly grace. Kruta couldn’t think of what to say, so he simply gaped at her appearance.

Come to think of it, he’d never heard what kind of background the Three Scourges had. He’d assumed they were some unique mythological beings born from the cosmos, like the Empyrean Throne, or part of the Human Tayn bloodline.

“Surprised?” the orc laughed. “You shouldn’t be. Would I have treated you so gently if not for our shared ancestry? It’s not so easy to grab onto the coattails of the Empyrean Throne without getting burnt.”

Kruta’s expression collapsed. Years of suffering, desperate battles, and breathing ash and smoke was considered gentle treatment?

“Why look so glum?” the fiery orc snickered. “I never said I wouldn’t help.”

“Kruta appreciates the offer, but the event has already passed,” he sighed, unwilling to spend even one more second with this lunatic. Beauty or not, Kruta couldn’t withstand much more of her attention. “If the ancestor can drop me off somewhere convenient, I would be most grateful.”

“What are you talking about? It’s over three years before the event for the juniors begin.”

“Ah?” Kruta said, his eyes blank before he understood. “Time Dilation?”

Why hadn’t he noticed? The Heavens were almost completely drowned out by the endless flames, but he was certain the Dao hadn’t been twisted by temporal distortion. He was even close to evolving his Branch of the Layered Blade to Late Mastery. How had Mistress Thousandflames accomplished something like that? Was this the benefit of holding a throne?

“No. I’m saying you’ve been on board my ship for a couple of months. Since when did it become years?”

“Huh?”

“Seems you got turned around by eating all those roots. I thought you realized they were poisonous when you spent two full days emptying your bowels in the bushes, but I guess you’re a bit of an idiot,” the orc sighed. “Well, that’s fine. It’s not the smartest guys who walk out of a battlefield in one piece. It’s the strongest one.”

Kruta was flushed with joy. He hadn’t missed it. He’d thought the old eccentric had prevented him from being sent to the Left Imperial Palace when three years had passed in his mind. Turns out he was out of his mind on toxic roots. Thank the ancestors! However, the frowning expression on Thousandflames’ face made Kruta rein in his jubilation, and he looked at her attentively.

“But what’s the deal with your aura? Your fire’s soft and gentle like a courtesan’s, even after tempering yourself a bit in the penal colonies. What good are you to my niece in your current state?”

“Uh,” Kruta hesitated, not sure what she was talking about. “I don’t know. I’ll work on it?”

“Fine,” Thousandflames relented, her eyes lighting up with excitement. “You’re too soft, but you’re still a kid. How about this? My little niece is undergoing some training herself. She should emerge in two years or so. Until then, I’ll toughen you up a bit. Whether I bring you or not depends on your performance.”

The thought of being tormented for two years was too much to bear. Not even the Left Imperial Palace was worth that. He’d just be happy with his partly-finished seal and see if it was enough to bring him over in three years. But how do you turn down the discipleship of a crazy Supremacy without getting toasted?

“Well?” Thousandflames said, her voice like a thousand roaring flames again.

You didn’t. Kruta was trapped. He could see it in her eyes. There was no room for rejection.

“Disciple greets master,” Kruta said, feeling something wet pour down his cheeks.

Sweat from the heat, no doubt. He surely wasn’t crying.

“Disciple…” Thousandflames said, a radiant smile spreading across her face. “Would you believe that I’ve never actually had a disciple?”

Kruta’s mind was a mess after being repeatedly dragged between joy and despair. But he roused himself. Maybe it wasn’t so bad? Maybe things were finally lining up for ol’ Kruta. Even being an in-name disciple of a Supremacy came with benefits most could only dream of. Being the sole disciple of one?

An opportunity like that was almost at the same level as the trial in the Left Imperial Palace. However, his new master’s next words threw him right back into the pit of despair.

“Well, never one that was fated, anyway.”

77

NUCLEUS

Zac flashed forward, appearing by the gates of his mansion. The powerful waves of energy greeted him by burrowing into his body, akin to a gentle caress. Like a missing part of himself coming home. There was no mismatch, and it barely took him any effort to make the energy his.

Was this how it felt to be a cultivator? Zac shook his head and continued toward a cultivation chamber he rarely entered. It used to be a conventional chamber with custom arrays based on your blueprint. The arrays helped cultivators speed up the formation of their Core Nuclei, but those things didn’t work on him.

As such, the room had mostly gathered dust, except when he occasionally secluded himself to ponder aspects of his Core Formation or [Cosmic Forge]. The energies were gathering there, meaning it had already been rearranged for the next step. Zac first sent out a short message to Catheya and Ogras, confirming he’d succeeded and was entering seclusion.

“I’m secluding myself,” Zac said out loud after receiving two answers of well-wishing.

“Affirmative,” Null said. “Your final tally is 130,784 Mana, granting you a fourteenth-echelon breakthrough environment. Your special requirements have been accepted. All other features of the Cosmic Gallery have been deactivated.”

Null was clearly following protocol, but Zac could hear her voice trembling with a mix of fear and anticipation. Null had a lot riding on this, just like him. If he failed his breakthrough, Null would be no more, no matter how splendidly he’d performed over these past seven years. Succeed, and Null would be awarded a true soul, becoming a permanent resident of the Perennial Vastness.

And being the guide to a fourteenth-echelon cultivator with such a unique blueprint probably came with additional perks.

“Thank you for all your help over the years,” Zac smiled. “I won’t let you down.”

“Thank you for working so hard,” Null answered. “Good luck.”

The next moment, the connection between him and the bracelet was cut, and it disappeared soon after. He could no longer sense the guide’s presence, and she didn’t answer his calls. Zac tried sending Catheya another prompt to confirm the situation. As expected, nothing happened. The outside had been sealed off.

Core Formation was the ultimate goal for those visiting the Perennial Vastness and the guests’ final opportunity to provide Sendor with something he could use for his undertaking. There could be no distractions at this juncture.

The gates of the cultivation chamber swung open as Zac approached, and he was surprised to see it led to a spatial gate. This wasn’t what he’d heard from Null when putting forth his requirements for his Core Formation. Normally, the Perennial Vastness would add the Core Formation arrays to the chamber, which your mansion’s Mana domain then empowered. With no one to ask about the situation, Zac simply stepped through.

The surroundings shifted, and Zac found himself standing on a disk far up in the air. The scenery far below was quite familiar between his manor to the range of sanctified mountains stretching across the horizon. He’d been placed on a floating platform five hundred meters above Mount Illumination.

Zac felt like he’d replaced the gargantuan Buddha he’d seen when first stepping onto Mount Illumination, feeling somehow connected to the lands. The mountains also formed a vast natural formation, generating unfathomable amounts of energy.

Energy which was flowing toward Mount Illumination.

The gateway disappeared behind him, and incredibly complex runes lit up beneath his feet. The whole ten-meter disk was an array, and its activation was the beginning of a huge transformation of the surroundings. First, five smaller array disks flew out from beneath the platform, each emitting different aura fluctuations.

They were part of his special requests, but he didn’t get the chance to properly inspect them before the whole universe shook. One moment, the expansive vista was the same one he’d gazed at for years. The next, the air was filled with multiple sets of threads that hummed with power and pulsated like a heartbeat.

The threads formed a huge tapestry that stretched farther than Zac could see, filling the world with gold, black, and steely grey. Some tapped into the mountains, siphoning and transforming their energy reserves. Others dug into the ground or even reached deep into space. Many connected with Mount Illumination below, which eagerly supplied its already transformed energy.

The scene reminded Zac of when Yrial imparted him with a piece of his Dao, where threads had descended from distant stars. Vast amounts of energy flowed toward the ancillary arrays, who further refined the payload before depositing it on the platform.

The tapestries’ attunements were almost an exact match to his Daos, and the energy density atop the disk approached a level where they could be considered liquified Natural Treasures. A mortal with a shallow foundation could almost form a Cosmic Core using the ambient energy alone.

This kind of benefit undoubtedly came courtesy of reaching the thirteenth echelon. He didn’t just get to usurp the energy of Mount Illumination; the whole mountain range became fuel for his breakthrough. Such treatment was one of the keys to forming his core without too many impurities. The Dao Threads were far from enough to fully satiate the demands of someone like him, but they would lessen the number of treasures he’d have to throw into his Duplicity Core by a third.

The tapestries of Life, Death, and Conflict were connected to the outer arrays. Conflict had two to itself, while the other Daos got one platform each and shared the fifth. There was also a fourth set of threads, which was quite different from the other three, and connected to all five ancillary arrays.

However, they didn’t extract any energy from the surrounding mountains nor channel energy into the outer arrays. The hidden tapestry simply accompanied the three sets of thread like a shadow, emitting weak fluctuations.

It would have taken Zac a while to notice the fourth tapestry if not for his intimate familiarity with what the environment represented. The threads portrayed his path, depicting his blueprint, where the fourth tapestry was the Void. And while it wasn’t nearly as stable or energy-dense as the other elements, Zac was quite surprised the Perennial Vastness managed to form something so closely resembling the real thing.

It was almost like Zac had been shrunken to a mote of dust and placed inside the simulation array back in his mansion. The circular array he stood on was placed right where the Cosmic Core’s nucleus would be, and he couldn’t even see the edge where his core ended. It was quite the place the Perennial Vastness had prepared for his Core Formation.

This whole setup, a level of customization not generally provided, was a unique feature designed for mortals, while most cultivators only used a main array.

Three of the outer arrays were refinement platforms for the treasures going into his core, based on Zac’s respective Daos: War Axe, Kalpataru, and Pale Seal. The Perennial Vastness provided the arrays in exchange for 5,000 Mana. They and the main array replaced the need for Core Formation Methods aimed at mortals. The mysterious threads were a welcome bonus that would increase his efficiency.

The final two ancillary arrays’ functions were to take him through the first hurdle of his Core Formation by setting up a stable nucleus. Thanks to this setup, Zac only needed to focus on correctly adding treasures and fusing the essences provided by the refinement arrays.

Zac had even modified the arrays using his accumulated knowledge from [Cosmic Forge]. They were still mostly the Perennial Vastness’ design, but the energy produced would be more familiar to him. Obviously, adding the theories of [Essence Union] into the arrays would have been even better, but the current setup was more than enough to accomplish his goals.

The two swirls of Life and Death inside his Duplicity Core wouldn’t last forever, so Zac sat down on a shimmering prayer mat. The movement made Zac grimace with pain. He’d kept a frantic pace since making his move on the splinter, and now that he’d stopped, he fully realized the state he was in.

Since he last seized a set of Remnants, he’d evolved his Draugr heritage and cultivated the [Void Vajra Sublimation]. His soul was stronger too, having crossed a whole stage thanks to the Moss Crystals, something that would normally have taken a century. All that work, yet it wasn’t enough to nullify the damage the Remnants wrought on one’s body.

As usual, Zac’s body and Soul Aperture were filled with hairline cracks in gold and grey, especially between his head and shoulders. This aspect wasn’t that bad, though. The Remnants had been given little time to leave a lasting mark on his body.

The bigger problem was the large amounts of Creation and Oblivion inside his soul spirals. They had frantically swallowed energy to protect the cores, and they hadn’t spat much of it back out when Zac formed the Glimpse of Chaos. Now, it remained a double-edged sword. The energy would come in handy one way or another. Even if he didn’t need to use it, it would still speed up his Soul Cultivation.

However, this wasn’t purified energy like what was released from the prison seals. The energy had been separated from its source and still contained the Remnants’ immortal will. He’d have to keep his guard up and not let it influence him. Apart from that, his Soul Cores were slightly damaged, but he could still extract 60-70% of their power.

The real damage had been wrought by the Glimpse of Chaos. He’d intentionally only used five Chaos Motes, just one more than when he broke out of the Orom World. It certainly wasn’t his limit, but it left his body in a state of disarray. His pathways were damaged, as were his cells and the [Thousand Lights Avatar].

None of it was lethal, but it created a general imbalance in his body. Energy was more difficult to control, and multiple leaks affected its composition. The turbulent energy was a stormy sea, and sending tendrils of Mental Energy to his Duplicity Core left them weakened and less agile.

Most wouldn’t even consider starting their Core Formation unless they were in perfect condition, both body and mind. Zac obviously would have preferred being fully healed before starting, but it wasn’t meant to be. His road had never been a straight one where everything went exactly according to plan. Why start now?

He was a scrapper. Forcibly pulling through with his body a mess was where he excelled.

Zac swallowed a mix of Healing Pills and got to work. Three boxes appeared before him, each sealed by dense layers of arrays. They contained the materials that would form his nucleus, and successfully dealing with their complex energies was the next hurdle to be crossed. And that needed finesse.

As much as Zac wanted, he couldn’t just swallow the treasures. He first needed to refine them into something that could be used as the nucleus of a core.

First, he took out the [Warstone], and his heart surged with vigor from being buffeted by the crystallized essence of Conflict.

Conflict was the underpinning concept of his path and the first Dao he encountered. It was also the universal truth that shaped his understanding of the Multiverse. His unusual introduction to the System had pitted him against the Gwyllgi Alpha in a roll for survival, but that was just the beginning. Fighting the Barghest outside his camper had been the true start of his bloody road toward supremacy.

He’d been fighting since day one, seizing the titles for being the first to slay a beast in the new order forced upon Earth. Conflict was a constant companion, molding him and pushing him forward. Now, it would become the first piece of his core.

Zac took out the Omnitool and began carving a series of lines across the stone, his hands moving in perfect harmony. Each line released immensely refined truths of War. A lot of ambient energy had already accumulated, and the [Warstone] turned the environment into a replica of his cave back home. Of course, be it energy or insights, the quality here far exceeded the setup on Earth.

Conflict, Life, and Death fought and raged, though Zac only felt comfort from the disturbance, entering an optimal state of mind. You could call the clamor the natural expression of his Daos, something he didn’t get to see in his mansion here in the Perennial Vastness.

The rays of War emitted a mottled mix of truths, some echoing his Branch of the War Axe while others didn’t. As Zac added more engravings to the stone, the leaking aura started to shift.

Away from his path.

The main reason the treasure needed to be engraved was to prepare it for processing and refinement. Zac had spent the better part of a decade working on his Omnitool and [Cosmic Forge], all so he could create a better core more attuned to his Dao. Part of his effort could be seen in the mysterious patterns added to the [Warstone].

It was impossible to remold the Supreme treasure into something fully harmonized with his Branch of the War Axe. He wasn’t confident even [Essence Union] would allow such a great transformation without destroying what made the [Warstone] unique. However, his proficiency in [Cosmic Forge] allowed him to nudge things in his favor.

Zac intentionally targeted the pieces unsuitable for his core, detaching their spiritual threads from the rest of the treasure. It was these pieces of spirituality that leaked from the treasure. Such a crude approach would irrevocably destabilize the Supreme treasure since he neither had the time nor skill to use [Cosmic Extraction] the intended way. In this case, it didn’t matter.

Zac couldn’t go too far. If the treasure’s unique spirituality collapsed, the [Warstone] would be no better for his core than some random, raw attuned energies.

It was a delicate balancing act, removing as many unneeded aspects as possible without getting too greedy. Once Zac finished the pattern, the timer had begun. It was impossible to say for certain, but Zac estimated he had around a minute before the [Warstone] would detonate like a bomb due to his meddling if he didn’t immediately start refining it.

He gingerly placed the treasure on the Nucleus Array powered by Conflict, and an immense pressure contained the energy within. Seeing it stabilizing under pressure, Zac infused his will into a control rune. A deluge of Dao and Energy, refined by Mount Illumination and the Dao thread, poured into the small stone. It started vibrating, taking on the accumulated energy in the tapestry.

Zac had to work quickly. The Dao of Conflict was rapidly being drained from the surroundings, and the imbalance only increased when Zac opened the second box and released a gust of Life and Death. They joined the waiting energies, forming a miniature version of the Calamity above his head. Small explosions created a smattering backdrop that Zac barely registered. He confirmed both arrays and Dao Threads had no problems withstanding the commotion.

His full focus was on the twinned crystals of the [Calamity Core], Life and Death trapped in an embrace—the remaining two-thirds of his Dao.

78

THE ROAD TOWARD HEGEMONY

The road that’d led Zac to the Daos of Life and Death was more circuitous than his connection to the Axe, marked by coincidence and outside factors. It was his battle with Mhal, the Corpselord General, that accidentally steered Zac down the path of Death. It was only a short conflict at the beginning of his journey, yet the Corpselord became one of the biggest influences on his path and achievements.

His Seed of Trees was later pushed toward the Dao of Life because of the need to create a counterforce to the wound Mhal left on him. Even then, it’d taken years of twists and turns until he reached his current direction. The fact that coincidence and necessity had so greatly influenced his history with these two Daos didn’t make them any less his.

Cultivation was discovery. To explore the universe and its secrets. There was no telling what you’d find. Dao was as much chance as fate, where your experiences and encounters influenced your understanding of the Heavens.

The Omnitool danced in Zac’s hand as he carved a second set of lines across the spiral, reminiscent of a snake winding between the crystals, gradually making its way up. The Mountain Heart held a fragile balance, requiring far less prodding than the [Warstone] to destabilize.

Sweat formed on Zac’s forehead as thick tendrils of Life broke out of the golden spiral, trying to burrow into its other half. Death fought back, and small cracks appeared across the treasure. The seconds passed, and the situation rapidly deteriorated.

Worse, the [Warstone] was already showing signs of early collapse. Zac’s heart thumped, though his hands remained steady. Then, it was finished. The winding pattern covered the spiral side to side, and Zac urgently set it on the second Nucleus Array and slammed his hand on a seal.

Both arrays hummed to life, and spatial fluctuations appeared as the treasures sank into the shimmering pattern. Zac exhaled as the items were fully consumed, and he returned to his spot on the prayer mat in the middle of the main array.

Every second of the following forty minutes stretched like an eternity, and maintaining the status quo inside the Duplicity Core wasn’t helping. At least it allowed the Healing Pills to mend his body a bit, and every explosion he prevented inside the [Hollow Core] prolonged the harmonizing effect. Of course, one more material needed to be added to the nucleus to make the harmony permanent.

The Void.

Zac’s eyes shifted to the third and final box, staunchly holding onto the schedule he’d set. He meticulously watched the refinement process until it was time to move.

The third box opened, and the [Void Engine] floated into his hand.

Dealing with the Void was both the simplest yet trickiest of the bunch. Simple, because he didn’t know what kind of patterns to draw on the surface to refine it, so he wouldn’t add any. Tricky, because the Void technically wasn’t part of his cultivation system, and he lacked the deep understanding that would normally go into a Cosmic Core.

The concept of the Void was an enigma, remaining as much a mystery today as it was when he first encountered it in the Towers of Myriad Dao. The answers he’d found were more related to the nature and origin of his bloodline than the Void itself. His Body Tempering Manual allowed him to get closer to the Void of Life, and the insights aided him to incorporate the Void of Dao into his Cosmic Core Blueprint. But the method was ultimately a borrowed concept from Ultom, just as Engo said seven years ago. The role of the Void was similar to that of an outside consultant to his core and a way to connect it with his bloodline.

The Void could be described as the absence of Dao, but what did that mean? Not even [Cosmic Forge] allowed Zac to better understand its nature, even if its creator was a being who cultivated before there was a Heaven.

The Dao had spread through Dasorm’s universe like a plague, tearing apart the reality the First People relied on. Dasorm had accomplished something truly incredible by taking on the poison, the raw Primal Dao of the era’s birth, and using it to create a seed of hope in the shape of a hammer. Not hope for himself, but that his craft would survive the upheavals.

The existence of the First People confirmed a few things. The Void existed even when the Heavens did not, and it had been possible to use it to reach levels equivalent to today’s Supremacies. Perhaps the Void remained a constant while the Dao rose and fell with Eras coming and going.

But how did his bloodline harness it? How did it enable his talents or even activate skills? Could it even be cultivated now that the Heavens had reformed? And since Zac didn’t understand the theories that had gone into the [Void Engine], there was no way for him to refine it the way he had the other two treasures.

Neither was the Perennial Vastness able to help in this regard. Cultivating the Void was seen as a dead end, and wasn’t within the purview of the seventeen Dao Peaks Sendor sought to perfect. You could see this reflected in the Tapestry of the Void around him. What it held wasn’t true Void Energy, which made sense since it shouldn’t be able to exist with the Dao.

The key was his bloodline, and it was the only reason his impossible core would work. The Void Emperor’s unique ability broke the rule of Void and Dao being unable to mix. That power was enough to give even Supremacies a shock. Furthermore, Zac deduced it was one of the main reasons his Duplicity Core functioned as it did.

Long ago, Zac thought the Kayar-Elu Clan picked Karz’s bloodline because of his ability to infinitely raise his affinities. Today, Zac wasn’t so sure. He even started to suspect the ‘corruption’ was not a heavenly punishment but rather an intentional modification.

And as luck would have it, Zac already came installed with a refinery for this unique type of Void Energy.

Zac pushed the [Void Engine] against his chest, which prompted a powerful thud of ancient hunger from [Void Heart]. He’d kept the Hidden Node restrained until now to avoid having it swallow Oblivion, Creation, or Chaos. Zac didn’t want it distracted from its most important task. No longer needing to hold back, Zac released his hold.

Each beat was filled with greater urgency, and Zac did everything he could to empower the node. Then, a vortex appeared on his chest, and the treasure was sucked inside. The Hidden Node calmed, beginning to refine the treasure. Thank God. Zac’s bloodline and Hidden Nodes had created those vortices on a few occasions, but this was only the third time he’d managed to intentionally trigger one across hundreds of attempts. He just needed to offer a tantalizing enough prize. Clearly, the [Void Engine] qualified.

If that failed, he would have been forced to cut open his chest and cram the [Void Engine] inside, something Zac definitely wanted to avoid. With that, all three components of his nucleus were being prepared.

The issue of incorporating the [Void Engine] was the one that stumped him the longest, turning into a migraine-inducing catch-22. Life, Death, Conflict, and Void were all needed to form the nucleus. If even one were missing, the whole thing would collapse.

His body was a safe harbor for Void Energy, but it was also incredibly voracious. Any time his [Void Heart] spat something out, it would be consumed by the vortices in his cells. Zac estimated he would have five minutes at most before the refined [Void Engine] was squandered, based on how much control he could exert on his bloodline through Heart Cultivation.

What were you supposed to do when you had no idea how long [Void Heart] would take to refine the [Void Engine]? Some energies took days before being released, while others were a matter of minutes. It wasn’t like the Hidden Node gave you an estimate either—it was radio silence until it spat everything out.

Zac estimated the process would take roughly fifty minutes to an hour, based on the energy involved and how much quicker his [Void Heart] refined Void-based items compared to normal treasures.

If everything worked out, the refinements would finish in step, and he’d go on to form his nucleus before the materials destabilized.

But what if his estimates were wrong? Refining the [Void Engine] could take twice as long because of how complex its inner structure was. If that happened, the [Calamity Core] and [Warstone] would have been wasted.

Zac could also see it swinging the other way. Such a pure Void Treasure might barely need refinement and get spat out in less than a minute. Then the [Void Engine] would be long gone by the time the Nucleus Array released the refined essences. He only had a few minutes of leeway in each direction.

He did have all kinds of backup treasures in case Plan A didn’t pan out, but that would have huge ramifications. He couldn’t just throw a bunch of unrefined Void Treasures into the [Hollow Core] in case the [Void Engine] was released too late. Even if it worked out through dumb luck, the resulting nucleus would be extremely rough.

More likely, he’d end up with an incomplete core that couldn’t withstand more than a handful of levels. Then, it would all be for nothing. Fixing such a mess would take centuries if it were even possible. He could forget about Ultom, and his value to the Undead Empire would drastically decrease. His goals of catching up with Leandra and saving Kenzie would grow far more distant.

The timing was a huge risk, and it wasn’t even the only one. With the original plan, he’d have two unstable energies on his hands. He would have to perfectly combine them at a breakneck pace before they destabilized, where a single mistake would lead to disaster.

Zac was unwilling to take that risk, so he opted for his untested solution of using Chaos. If it succeeded, he would have a far easier time with this first step. So far, his choice had proven the right one.

A section of the main array lit up a few minutes after Zac dealt with the [Void Engine], and two bright blobs appeared. Forty-six minutes on the dot, just like Null said, and Zac finally relaxed. The guide had assured him the Perennial Vastness knew what it was doing—how could it fail in refining the items found within its domain? But it was impossible not to worry when so much was at stake.

Sendor had thankfully come through. Zac didn’t know how, but the arrays prepared by the Perennial Vastness melted the treasures without damaging their essence. The Nucleus Arrays were custom designed for these two treasures and the patterns he’d added. He essentially had a Supremacy personally overseeing the process, ensuring this first step would work without a hitch.

No energy leaked from the materials, and they weren’t fluctuating dangerously, either. The arrays he’d engraved had fused with the material itself, creating a stable structure that could be molded.

The glowing blob from the [Warstone] looked like heated steel, emitting an aura somewhere between its original Dao of War and his Branch of the War Axe.

The [Calamity Core] was a sphere of heated glass. Life and Death almost formed a Yin-Yang symbol, except for the missing dots. The two sides were in perfect balance in energy, aura, and Dao, which was why he picked the [Calamity Core] over two separate Supreme treasures.

Of course, the balance didn’t mean the elements had fused, and stability was only a relative concept regarding Life and Death. The Nucleus Array had forced them together, and it remained an unstable union without the Void to keep the peace. There was a mutual rejection within the treasure, but it was within his expectations.

Zac dragged the two materials over with telekinesis as he disrobed to leave his chest bare. The tattoo on his belly was still there, ready to receive more materials. The main array had a similar function, but the tattoo was better as it was slightly faster. His skin rippled as the [Calamity Core] entered his body. The [Warstone] would soon follow, but he needed to complete the next step separately. Zac dragged the molten glass into his core, where the perfected Life and Death waited.

The molten treasure was a voracious black hole when it came in contact with the energies sealed inside the [Hollow Core]. Vast amounts of Life entered the golden half of the glowing sphere, while the Quantum Death entered the black one. The sense of rejection was rapidly weakening as more and more energy entered.

“That’s it!” Zac shouted.

This was exactly what he wanted to see. He’d been somewhat confident in his plan after seeing the Chaos Motes successfully split, but it was still a huge load off his shoulders to see the [Calamity Core] stabilize. The twinned crystal was as stable as the [Warstone] when two-thirds of the accumulated Dao had been absorbed.

Still, Zac crammed another two Chaos Motes’ worth of perfected truth into the Supreme treasure, ensuring it would stay stable even longer. The energy inside the [Hollow Core] was fully drained except for lingering pieces of Conflict he hadn’t managed to prevent the Duplicity Core from absorbing.

The [Warstone] entered the [Hollow Core] the second that process was done, joining the [Calamity Core]. Simultaneously, Zac released the floodgates in his mind, letting a storm of Dao emerge from his [Spiritual Void] while the axe-wielding Dao Avatar was squeezed for over three-quarters of its accumulated truth.

The War-attuned treasure already contained significantly more energy than the [Calamity Core] thanks to being left on the array until it couldn’t withstand it any longer. Still, it wasn’t a match to the [Calamity Core] after it swallowed the four Chaos Motes. This was a second infusion to reach equilibrium between the three forces.

Zac shifted his attention to the platform beneath him. A nudge activated its main feature, and the whole thing came alive. The array started to absorb the vast amounts of energy provided by the Dao Tapestries, using it as fuel. An uncomfortable pressure built in his body, but he ignored the discomfort as he ensured none of his Hidden Nodes triggered.

A gleaming, three-colored sphere surrounded the Duplicity Core, releasing immense gravitational waves into the core. Seeing the Duplicity Core was fine, Zac sent out over twenty strings of Mental Energy. They entered the sphere, where they were transformed. They were still spiritual, but the array gave them physical characteristics, allowing them to interact with the materials.

Their function was similar to robotic surgical instruments sometimes used before the Integration. It was night and day compared to the Mortal Core Formation methods he’d found in Zecia. Those techniques pretty much took the base materials and put them under great pressure, squeezing them into a shape resembling a blueprint.

It took little time to get used to the transformation since it was ultimately his Mental Energy. The only problem was that his control was a bit clumsy due to the damage across his body.

The [Void Engine] was still being cooked inside his Hidden Node, but that didn’t mean Zac could sit around. From the second he began the process, there would be no rest. His core was currently just two treasures pushed against each other, gradually being distorted by the immense pressure released by the Core Formation Array.

The next step was to mix and shape the temporarily malleable materials into a proper nucleus, adding the critical pathways and connections that would make up the inner circuitry of his Cosmic Core.

Zac was full of anticipation, sending the mental tendrils forward like a swarm of snakes. Everything until now was just the warm-up. The next step was what he’d truly practiced for.

The actual Core Formation was finally starting.

79

UNCERTAINTY INTO TRUTH

The pressure the Core Formation Array levied on the treasures was immense, and they sporadically released bursts of energy that shook the [Hollow Core]. The energy was then forced right back into the materials after wreaking havoc, leading to a volatile cycle.

Zac controlled the Mental Energy tools to mold the blobs of Conflict and Life, relieved to find the surgical tools mostly unaffected by the gravitational force. The refined [Calamity Core] and [Warstone] were very responsive, like putty. There was one problem, however. He had no way to interact with the deathly half of the [Calamity Core] in his human form.

His Life and Conflict-attuned Core Formation tools were blocked when trying to pass through the Death-attuned half of the [Calamity Core], but they couldn’t mold or move it at all. It lived its own life, changing shape based on pressure and the movements of the other two materials.

Similarly, he’d lost his connection with the tools filled with his Branch of the Pale Seal the moment they entered the Duplicity Core, transformed by the mysterious quantum state that influenced all Death in the core. But that was fine. He would start the process in his human form and then swap over to his Draugr side.

The pressure was almost too great to form his core next to the two spheres. However, it was the pressure which kept the energies contained and the materials malleable. If he turned off the main array, the materials would rapidly cool and harden. Since that wasn’t an option, Zac used the tendrils to force the materials to spin while pressing against each other. The gravitational force and the spinning treasures created a makeshift roll press, a technique only possible when having surgical tools to assist the formation.

From there, he extracted a piece from each blob, like string pulled from spools, and pushed them together. He formed a simple braid before it was crushed between the rolling spheres. The braid emerged significantly more compressed on the other side and stuck to the [Warstone]’s surface. The more condensed the nucleus was, the stabler it would become.

Zac added a few more sections of Conflict to the braid while preparing half a braid on the other sphere. Each cycle fused and arranged the preliminary connections in the Cosmic Core’s center.

A surge of energy warned that the materials wouldn’t come together without a fight, and Zac was forced to give up a cycle as the braid released a tremendous shockwave of intermixed energy.

A large section of his budding creation was damaged, undoing most of his work in one go. This was the uphill battle any mortal would face, especially one wanting to create such a complex core. He salvaged what he could and let the rest rejoin the spinning blobs as he extracted new strings.

Thirty minutes passed as the super-condensed nugget grew bigger and bigger, where every layer was earned after multiple setbacks. The Death-attuned energies were unsurprisingly the source of the biggest headache. The growing ball of yarn was filled with uneven spots of Death dragged inside by the process, only some of it intentionally. The nucleus was roughly 60% in line with his blueprint, and every eruption came with the risk of pushing that number lower.

Not being in control of one-third of the matter going into the nucleus created a lot of difficulties. Zac did what he could to indirectly influence the uncontrollable half of the [Calamity Core]. He intentionally created empty pockets between Life and Conflict where Death squeezed inside. Along with temporary blockades when too much Death was about to be pulled into the roll press.

Not much time had passed, yet he’d already lost count of the number of explosions the [Hollow Core] had been forced to absorb. Zac avoided some of the disasters, but most didn’t even give him a chance to react. His mental tendrils were repeatedly shredded, forcing him to expend energy reforming them.

During this time, there were no signs of [Void Heart] releasing the missing piece of the puzzle.

It was for the best. While getting his hands on the refined Void Energy would be one less worry, it was liable to complicate the process. He had no idea how much control he’d be able to exert over the Void Energy, especially with the Core Formation Array unable to help.

If he could build an operational base on the other three materials first, he would simply need to push the Void into the “empty space,” similar to how he used his Dao Molds. While the models of his blueprint looked porous, that was just because it was impossible to properly express the Quantum States of his core in three-dimensional space.

In reality, he needed to infuse the Void Energy into the untouchable Quantum Death in his human form, then repeat the process with Life as a Draugr. And since he had no idea what that infusion would lead to, it was a good idea to finish as much work as possible beforehand.

Another thirty minutes passed, which meant he’d crossed his estimate on the [Void Heart].

Still nothing.

Zac slowed the rotation of the growing nucleus as much as he could while taking out three new treasure boxes. They were all top-tier materials of Life, Death, and Conflict, all sourced inside the Perennial Vastness. Zac added a set of engravings before placing them on their respective refinement array.

Just as Zac finished his work on the third treasure, a huge energy fluctuation shook his core. Zac urgently turned his focus back to the [Hollow Core]. A whole section had destabilized, and Zac was forced to cut it off. He threw the piece to one corner while moving the nucleus to another, shielding it with Mental Energy.

A second later, the alloy shattered, and an unprecedented explosion raged, forcing the energies back into the nucleus just like the energy from outside, but that wasn’t the case for the physical material. Until now, the eruptions had only been energy. This time material itself exploded. That section was gone, and he suddenly had less material to work with.

It had also lost its spirituality, and he could only extract the fragments from the [Hollow Core]. Zac sighed, beginning the process again with new material to patch the damage.

Meanwhile, the three new treasures began absorbing the ambient Dao from the Dao Tapestries on the Dao Platform. The treasures sank into the refinement array fifteen minutes later, just before they risked destabilizing. With his full focus back on the core, Zac didn’t lose any more material.

The explosions continued as incessant solar flares that refused to relent. But the nucleus also grew more compact, to the point the innermost regions were forcibly stabilized.

It took a full ninety-five minutes, but Zac managed to fuse all the matter from the [Warstone] and [Calamity Core] into an almost perfectly spherical blob of alloy. Zac’s soul trembled from the effort, having been forced to constantly split his consciousness into twenty threads to maximize efficiency.

Zac said a silent prayer of good health for Mossy. If not for the living planet’s Moss Crystals, he’d never have managed to evolve his soul. And without a Three Fates Soul, he wasn’t sure if he would have endured the process.

Unfortunately, the nucleus still only looked like 60% of what it should. If Zac began channeling energy through this thing, it’d go from a Cosmic Core into a nuclear warhead. Still, he was happy with his efforts and moved on to stage two. Mental Threads entered the pathways of Life and Conflict and began exerting pressure to expand sections and move others.

Manipulating the inner structure of the nucleus like this made its energy even more volatile, and he was forced to reform the mental tendrils twice as often. At least the blob moved closer to what it should look like.

Zac was beginning to run low on Mental Energy even when liberally using Soul Crystals, so he supplemented with Soul Recovery Pills. Each subsequent pill would provide less than the one before, but what could he do? Zac guessed it was unavoidable when working with immense energy and great pressure. As for the [Void Heart] taking its sweet time? Zac couldn’t do anything about it, so he kept working on what he could affect.

It took him a full hour to improve the nucleus to 75% similarity with the blueprint, at which point progress drastically slowed. There was only so much you could do to fix the problems caused by Death without actually touching it, so Zac infused some energy into the Duplicity Core.

Life and Death inverted, and the dormant tendrils filled with his Branch of the Pale Seal woke up. The previously inaccessible black crystal of the [Calamity Core] became fully malleable. Finally having access to the Death-attuned side drastically sped up progress, but it still took another hour until he reached 90% precision.

Shifting back to human let him add finishing touches, pushing that number to an impressive 95%. The last 5% was impossible to solve without being able to manipulate all three elements simultaneously. Besides, his soul was utterly drained. He wouldn’t have the strength to deal with the energy bursts if he kept pushing it.

There were no critical errors in its appearance, just minor inefficiencies, and that problem should solve itself. Dao had a natural state of balance, which could be glimpsed from the patterns often appearing on High-grade materials. As such, the Core Formation Array’s constant pressure would make the materials move toward equilibrium as they condensed.

There wasn’t much left for Zac to do except keep watch and recover. The nucleus was as stable as could be, and few low-grade cultivators would be able to spot anything wrong. But it was built on a lie. Anyone with the slightest insights into the paradoxical nature of the Peak of Chaos would know Zac’s solution shouldn’t work.

And technically, it didn’t.

Zac had kept his mind occupied over the past hours, but it was time to face facts. His estimates on the [Void Heart] were inaccurate, and not by a small degree. Meanwhile, the lingering unity of Chaos was starting to wear off. The imperfection of his low attainment in the Dao tainted the perfected version of Life and Death, and seeds of discord disrupted the balance inside the [Hollow Core].

It was just a matter of time before it destabilized the nucleus. Even the radiant light from the agitated materials started to wane.

Too much time had passed, and the materials were hardening. Certainly, the Supreme treasures had been indelibly transformed by the process, but they couldn’t remain in this state. It was the same as with working on skill fractals. You could only modify a fractal for so long until it solidified.

He needed to start adding the next set of materials. Wait too long, and the second layer wouldn’t properly connect with the nucleus, creating a hidden weakness where the Cosmic Core would crack when too much energy coursed through its pathways.

That’s why he’d already thrown the next set of materials onto the refinement arrays. The general refinement arrays took longer than the specialized arrays Zac used before, and he needed to have the materials on hand before the nucleus solidified. Of course, that depended on Zac making it that far. The nucleus was living on borrowed time.

[Void Heart] was almost three hours late in providing the final piece of the puzzle, and Zac’s worry only grew as another hour passed. Zac was infinitely thankful he had been a bit greedy when it came to the Chaos Motes. If anything, he felt a pang of regret not opting for a few more. Of course, that might have resulted in his soul not enduring the unexpectedly rough process.

He’d passed the time using his [Undying Mark] and Healing Pills to fix some of the damage to his body and Soul Aperture, and he’d performed maintenance on his damaged pathways and [Thousand Lights Avatar]. Later, he swapped back to his human form to use [Surging Vitality] and a second batch of pills.

Then Zac reached a point he hoped he’d never have to see. The mental threads moved like surgical knives to cut off a small section that was destabilizing. He tried to expel it from his body, but neither hatch nor [Hollow Core] allowed the release of such energy-rich material. He could only repeat his previous maneuver and withstand the resulting explosion. It rocked the hidden space within the Duplicity Core, and Zac dragged the broken pieces out soon after with a sense of defeat.

Losing a couple of pieces of the nucleus wasn’t the end of the world. The damage could be repaired, and it only meant a bit more work when he needed to upgrade the core in the future. But the fact he couldn’t maintain stability even with a fully formed nucleus meant he was out of time. Every subsequent explosion would create a negative spiral that would spin out of control.

Zac fought exhaustion while infusing his full will into the [Hollow Core], but it felt like he was trying to right a sinking ship by throwing water overboard with a bucket. Indecision gnawed at him as he desperately tried to maintain the status quo, his eyes constantly darting to the ring holding his Void Treasures.

Then, a deep thump shook the whole platform, and Zac almost cried with relief. [Void Heart] had given him a scare, but it was finally done. A stream of mysterious Void Energy poured out of the Hidden Node, looking like a thundercloud of alien runes. The patterns didn’t resemble anything from Ultom and seemed completely separate from the systems used in this era. Zac wasn’t even certain whether it was physical or spiritual as it moved through his body.

Deciphering those formations might be key to finding clues to the Void, but this wasn’t the time or place. His cells were already trying to drag runes out of the clouds, and the nucleus was teetering on the brink of collapse. Zac captured the cloud with a net of Mental Energy and dragged it toward his Duplicity Core.

Meanwhile, he opened his cells wide and supplied large amounts of Void Energy, slightly diluting its immense energy to exchange quality for quantity. The cloud was too intense, overpowering the auras from the other three elements. If Void of Death was more powerful than the Dao of Life, he’d fail to reach a state of equilibrium.

Zac stopped the churning cloud right outside the hatch, where he split it in half after a short deliberation. He considered adding Branches of the Pale Seal and Kalpataru into the halves but decided against it. The Quantum Death fused with modified Void should result in Void of Death. Adding actual Dao would likely ruin the process.

It was impossible to say whether he was making the right call or whether his idea would even work. He could only put his faith in Ultom’s impartments and years of effort as he made the plunge. Zac could already sense that another piece of the nucleus was about to destabilize, so he pushed one of the clouds through the hatch. Mental tendrils turned into a blur as they split the cloud into two dozen streams that entered the nucleus from every direction.

Zac didn’t have to wait long to see the result. His triumphant roar echoed through the mountain range as the Void Energy effortlessly entered the Quantum Death, and the cloud was rapidly consumed. It worked! Void really was the key. However, the Void Energy was certainly not the calming balm he’d anticipated. Anywhere it entered, the surroundings quaked as the Void disrupted the faltering peace brought by Chaos.

For a moment, it looked like Zac had built a bomb rather than a core, but that didn’t mean he stopped infusing the nucleus. There was no going back now. Either he finished the job, or he’d blow himself and the surrounding mountains to kingdom come. It only took a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity as he desperately applied the Void to every nook and cranny.

Then, the shaking stopped, and the energies turned docile after hours of madness. Zac looked on with bated breath until it seemed like his vantage shifted. Zac felt like he was looking at one of those images that changed motif depending on the angle from which you looked. A moment ago, the nucleus felt like a fake core, like someone had slapped a new coat of paint on a rotting house.

Now, it was perfect—an Evolutionary Core holding the shadow of Inexorability.

Well, almost perfect. Seven imperfections marred the complex structure after he’d been forced to excise the unstable sections, creating some disturbances in the energy flow. However, that level of damage was no worse than him getting a couple of cuts. He’d still be able to fight in that state, and his Cosmic Core would still work with issues this small.

Part of Zac just wanted to look at his creation and marvel, but he had to keep going. He swapped to his Draugr form and began the process anew with the other half of the Void Cloud. Inverting the core destabilized it again, but having one completed half made it sturdier. Even then, Zac filled the sections with extreme meticulousness until a complete Inexorable Core was born.

Zac just sat there staring at his creation with an immense sense of satisfaction.

Fifteen years it’d taken him to reach this point. Fifteen years of struggle, wracking his brain for a solution. A solution that would prove to the world they were wrong. That it was possible to form a core with Life and Death. Yet, even as he began this final process, he hadn’t been entirely sure whether he was chasing a wild fantasy or if he was really onto something.

Today, uncertainty finally turned into truth.

80

TOLL OF HEGEMONY

Zac released a heavy breath. Forming a nucleus obviously wasn’t the same as forming a core, but it was the step that worried him the most.

With that hurdle out of the way, Zac grabbed one of the Void Cores to extract its energy. A storm of chaotic energy entered his body, dragged straight into his heart before it could cause damage or create a mess. Infusing the cloud had drained him of most of his Void Energy, and he needed to recover some while he worked on the refinement arrays.

Turning his attention to the three items on their respective glowing array, Zac guessed they’d be ready in around an hour. He observed the golden metallic root atop the Life-attuned platform for a few seconds before shaking his head. It was a Life-attuned treasure at the top of Peak-quality, but the timing meant it couldn’t be used for his core. He grabbed the half-refined treasure and crushed it, swallowing some while letting the released toxic waves of Life enter through his pores and irradiate his body. It was better than letting it go to waste.

Waves of nausea hit him, but the feeling lessened as Zac dragged the immense energies into his soul and the cracks left by the splinter.

He still had a complicated relationship with Life in his Draugr form, but it wasn’t quite considered poisonous any longer. The infusion of Life ground against the stubborn slivers of Oblivion hidden in the scars, exhausting and erasing them. A similar scene played out inside his Soul Aperture, where the energies nurtured and healed the Life-attuned Soul Core.

Twenty minutes passed until the energy was expended, at which point Zac repeated the process with the Death-attuned treasure on the refinement array. The remaining active array didn’t need much input from him, so he figured he might as well eat some treasures to fix his body. Doing so would leave behind some impurities, but so what? A tribulation was just around the corner.

Zac engraved another Death-attuned treasure with a refinement pattern. The one he just used up would be refined too early. Besides, all the Life-Death treasures he’d prepared were matched up in pairs to ensure every layer would be balanced. Since the Life-attuned treasure had been discarded, the Death-attuned needed to go too. The choice of treasures holding the Dao of Conflict wasn’t as stringent, so the remaining metal would become the first piece of the core’s next layer.

Most cultivators would probably curse Zac for using such precious treasures like they were simple Healing Pills, but he had gathered way more than he needed during his years of collecting Mana. Losing a couple of sets wasn’t a big deal, and he felt a lot better by the time the Death-attuned treasure had been absorbed. Part of it was thanks to his soul being in a better state, and one part was simply relaxing from the pent-up stress.

Twenty minutes later, a spiritual nudge confirmed the War-attuned treasure was done. Zac pulled it over with telekinesis. The array on his stomach had already collapsed, So Zac placed the refined metal onto a sub-array next to him.

The material flickered and suddenly felt illusory—it was ready. Zac pushed it into his side, avoiding the broken tattoo just in case. The piece of metal passed through his body like a ghost until it reached the outer shell formed by the main Core Formation Array. At that time, it turned corporeal again as it entered.

The new piece of Conflict was like a small moon pulled by the gravity of a far greater planet. In fact, the nucleus’ pull was so strong that the new treasure would’ve crashed into its surface like a meteor if not for Zac restraining it. Even then, Zac barely managed to hold the material back while spinning the nucleus to the correct location, at which point he let the blob of Conflict-attuned steel land.

The pressure would merge the materials even if Zac did nothing at that point. Of course, such a creation would only barely follow the patterns of his blueprint thanks to the ambient energies. To avoid such a crude result, Zac used the mental tendrils to reforge and reform the piece of Conflict. Two hours passed until something similar to a silvery spiderweb had been evenly applied to the nucleus.

The process had been quite smooth compared to forming the nucleus, apart from a few eruptions and the general drain of Mental Energy. Only adding one material at a time increased the duration of the process and the overall strain on his mind. In return, the risk of mistakes occurring was far lower, and Zac felt that was more important than saving time.

With the next attuned treasure on its refinement array nearly complete, Zac took out a vial containing a shimmering pill with immense waves of unattuned energy and heat. He swallowed it, and it was like a white sun erupted in his chest.

Zac dragged the ball of energy into the hatch, and the pill needed no guidance from that point, smoothly entering the core. The waning lights of the nucleus rekindled, regaining some of the luster it lost while waiting for [Void Heart] to finish. The pill was called [Rising Sun Return], a hot commodity inside Vastness City provided by a powerful alchemy clan in the Multiverse Heartlands.

Its effect was simple: returning some malleability to a budding core. Sometimes, delays or mistakes make you fall behind schedule, which could lead to a negative spiral of accumulating mistakes. The [Rising Sun Return] acted as a second lifeline, where you’d get the opportunity to fix the problem or catch up. One could only eat three such pills during Core Formation, and its effect would be halved after every use. Yet Zac felt it warranted after the earlier delay.

With his nucleus once more resembling a magmatic ball, Zac dragged over the next treasure—this one Death-attuned—adding another layer. The addition of more Death-attuned material affected the stability of the core, but the thin outer layer wasn’t enough to push the nucleus off-balance. It just resulted in a few more discharges of energy.

After Death had joined War, Zac swapped to his human form to add the matching Life. With all three materials in balance, the core calmed. Even better, just as Zac was about to infuse Void into the Quantum Death, he realized he didn’t need to. The dense amounts of Void were already spreading into the added section.

With the initial hump passed, Zac entered the longest stage of the Core Formation. He formed a stable cycle, adding one element after another while swapping between Draugr and human. Layers of Conflict, Death, and Life were tacked onto the growing core. Occasionally, Zac supplied Void Energy through his [Void Heart] to prevent the Void from becoming too diluted. Interestingly, the vast Dao Tapestry was absorbed into his core with every layer added, providing extra strength and stability, shrinking the spiderweb a bit.

Zac almost felt like he was gestating life inside the [Hollow Core], and he was filled with anticipation as the weeks turned to months. During that time, he encountered only a few snags. Some materials destabilized before they could be used, and others didn’t react as he’d expected when forming his plan. The constant explosions were a real headache.

His Quantum Core would hold more than ten times the energy compared to most cultivators while being a mortal. And when the one month mark had passed, he knew there was no chance he’d survive the core collapsing. It was success or death.

Such a threat wasn’t enough to make Zac hesitate or back down, though the eruptions only worsened. The Core Refinement array could only take you so far when trying to contain such vast amounts of energy. Even his [Hollow Core] was starting to show cracks. Zac doubted its creator could ever have dreamed his invention would get beat up so badly.

The Core Formation barrier could be moved inside the Duplicity Core if the protective shell cracked, but it wouldn’t block out the damage nearly as well. In other words, the energies would crash into the Duplicity Core, and Zac had no idea if it was designed to withstand these kinds of eruptions. After all, his Core Formation process was undoubtedly designed to be controlled by Jeeves, who’d manage the process with inhuman precision.

Two months in, Zac was forced to swallow his second [Rising Sun Return]. It wasn’t to catch up but rather to turn the inner regions of the core malleable again. The internal wiring had been damaged to the point it couldn’t be ignored anymore. At the same time, Zac had no choice but to start relying on outside help.

One pill, talisman, and consumable treasure after another was used over the following days, each a powerful but costly method to absorb damage or calm the core. The large amount of toxins was manageable, but each lifeline added some extra heterogeneity to his core. Even then, the [Hollow Core] cracked around the three-month mark from an earthshattering explosion that almost knocked Zac unconscious.

He held on to his fraying consciousness, clumsily containing the damage while swallowing the third and final [Rising Sun Return] to repair the huge crack that reached all the way to the nucleus. Months had passed with no rest, and he’d been constantly forced to maintain full focus. His soul was a parched desert, but his red eyes gleamed with madness and excitement as a rumble shook the sky. The [Hollow Core] had lasted much longer than Zac expected, and the Dao Tapestry was almost fully absorbed.

A few dark clouds had appeared in the sky over the past days, and a weak aura of punishment filled the mountain range. The Heavens hadn’t descended in earnest just yet, but Zac’s Cosmic Core was already nearing completion. Things had more or less gone according to plan, except the process had been rougher than he expected.

Yet the result was good. A few layers were still missing, but Zac could barely believe how close to his goals the core had come. Certainly, the large number of explosions left enough imperfections to make a High-quality Cosmic Core an impossibility, but it was certainly enough for Middle-quality. It wasn’t even a matter of barely pushing past the goalpost. He was well within the acceptable range.

Another three days passed, and Zac’s hands shook as he moved the refined piece of Life-attuned Natural Treasure onto the main array. His soul was too tired for telekinesis, but he roused himself as he tacked on the layer that perfectly entered the groves on the core’s surface. The region was drenched in darkness, apart from the flickering purple of the barely contained bolts of lightning above. The sky roared, and Zac didn’t dare look up, afraid that giving the boundless fury attention would unleash the storm.

There was something odd about the Tribulation Lightning this time. Technically, the tribulation for forming a boundless Cosmic Core was the same as forming Dao Branches. Cultivation was stealing providence from the Heavens, and the severity of these two crimes was considered at the same level. However, the amassed energy far surpassed what he’d endured inside the Orom World. Something about his core angered the Heavens more than normal.

At the same time, it didn’t seem very focused. The lightning was spread across the horizon rather than gathered above him. Almost like the Heavens had trouble pinpointing his exact location, making it even angrier. Zac presumed it was a feature of the Duplicity Core rather than the Perennial Vastness, adding the Technocrat’s trademark ability to hide from the Heavens.

This time, Zac didn’t mind his mother’s meddling. He’d planned to slow his progress when he reached this point, to recover before facing the tribulation. But with the process being so volatile, Zac was forced to keep a breakneck pace to the end. Even now, there was no chance to rest.

One side of the core was complete, while the other was not. Zac could already sense the incredibly dense energy streams form a perfect circuit in his Evolutionary Core, which put immense pressure on the other side. Zac shifted to his Draugr form one last time, where he branded the recently added pathways with the Void.

Balance was restored within his trinity path, and something clicked. A second circuit was completed, and two streams became one. One half felt real and palpable, while the other remained in a quantum state, like a shadow hiding from the light. The flowing rivers of energy added stability, further fusing the materials.

It was done.

Zac couldn’t use it yet, but he had a fully working core.

A powerful pulse of primal force shook the hidden space within the Duplicity Core. The wave passed through the Specialty Core’s walls, where it seemed to be amplified rather than absorbed. It spread through his body, invigorating him and filling his cells with boundless power before continuing outward.

It was an unstoppable expression of Zac’s Dao and his path, a heralding cry of his ascent. It made the ambient energy in the whole region stir, forming one apparition after another around him. They didn’t look like the Kalpataru tree nor the Iron Maiden of his Pale Seal. The apparitions weren’t even fashioned after the shifting Dao Avatar wielding his two axes.

Instead, two powerful armies materialized, forming a protective circle like an Imperial Guard. While both sides were part of his force, there was an unmistakable animosity between the camps.

One army looked like a horde of barbarian ravagers. No two were identical in shape or equipment, except they all wielded axes. They emitted a primal aura of dominance, more beast than man, with an unquenchable and unbreakable will. Like their weapons could sever Dao, Fate, and the Heavens themselves.

The other half was a dour army of hooded executioners, slightly resembling Zac’s form when using [Arbiter of the Abyss]. All held a black axe, and chains wound around their black robes. Their auras truly resembled that of a judge. Their weapons held the inexorable certainty of death. Dao, Fate, and the Heavens only became subordinate truths of their will.

Nine hundred ninety-nine warriors were conjured in each camp before the phenomenon stopped expanding. However, the pulse continued even when the armies did not. It spread to envelop the whole mountain and beyond, repainting the valleys in the color of Zac’s Dao. The platform beneath his feet crumbled from the pressure, yet Zac floated in place. He was a radiant sun, showering the world with his glory.

It was the Toll of Hegemony.

The toll was like the first cry of a newborn, announcing its existence to the world. But instead of a baby, it was a path born, manifested into physical form through his Cosmic Core. Some considered Hegemony the true start of cultivation, and Zac could understand the feeling as his Daos and Energy kept him aloft, surrounded by a sea of his power.

This kind of phenomenon marked every ascent, though apparitions only appeared when Dao Branches fueled it. Zac was shocked as the wave just kept going.

The size and expression of the toll depended on various factors, such as quality, energy density, and the stability of one’s path. Zac had heard forming a one-mile shockwave was the hallmark of a cultivator with the qualifications to continue beyond the entrance of Hegemony. Five meant the core could climb through the ranks of the grade, while twenty indicated a seed of potential for an Inner World.

So why did Zac’s pulse just keep going?

At first, Zac considered it a welcome recognition of his potential when five miles turned into ten. Until the ripple reached the neighboring peaks, setting their energy astir. Twenty, thirty, and soon fifty miles. It was unstoppable, and Zac’s excitement was soon replaced by worry. Because for every mile the pulse expanded, the Heavens grew more agitated as it forcibly honed in on his location.

The light of his Dao projections were eventually overwhelmed by the purple gathering above. Zac had to fight his instincts to burrow into the ground, to use the layers of soil to hide from the gathering punishment. For one, it would be to shame his path, and it was fruitless. There was no escape from what came next.

The shockwave stopped after forming a domain of over ninety-nine miles, an accomplishment Zac had never heard of before. By this point, the Heavenly clouds were fully purple, and Zac spotted mysterious runes inside the formations. They were like angry spots of red, filled with the desire for destruction.

Zac quelled the turmoil in his heart, and his eyes steeled. Even if the bolts were superpowered, he only needed to withstand three. He refused to believe it was enough to do him in.

The Dao Apparitions shifted, and the whole mountain range stirred. One second ago, it seemed as though a supreme Dao Treasure had been born, creating a glorious spectacle. Now, that feeling was replaced by ruthlessness and fighting spirit. And the sense of internal disharmony between the armies was gone. Their aggression fully turned to the outside threat.

Together, they formed an axe pointed at the sky.

81

AN AXE AGAINST THE HEAVENS

Over the past three months, Zac had spent a fortune on talismans, pills, and treasures to pave the way through his Core Formation process. The total cost was undoubtedly counted in tens of C-grade Nexus Coins if you included the outside value of all the unique treasures he’d picked up inside the Perennial Vastness.

Yet now, Zac didn’t take out a single item as he looked to the turbulent sky. It wasn’t that he’d run out of money but that some things had to be dealt with on your own. Heavenly Tribulation was the Law of Balance manifest. He’d taken something from the Heavens, breaking his mortal shackles to steal power and longevity far beyond what any human should hold. As such, he needed to pay the price.

Some methods and treasures could help you out, but they generally came with a cost Zac was unwilling to pay. The most glaring one was that withstanding the tribulation was necessary to temper and transform the Cosmic Core one final time. It was both punishment and a path forward. If you weakened the lightning out of fear of getting hurt, you’d lower the potential of your Cosmic Core.

Some sinister methods subverted balance through things like sacrifice, where you used other cultivators as cauldrons to refine the Tribulation Lightning before letting it enter your body. That way, you’d get the benefits while someone else paid the price. Zac guessed Saeward’s array was exactly this kind of method. He’d trapped the souls of his soldiers in a cycle of suffering to turn them into something that could help him pass his tribulation.

In a spat of cosmic justice, Saeward failed and was turned into an experiment by Sendor. However, even if he’d succeeded, it wouldn’t have been without issues. Such a method was bound to stain your Karma, affecting your providence and Luck. It wasn’t just a form of punishment meted out by the System; it was Heavenly Law.

Zac would never use that kind of method, not just because he found it revolting and an insult to his Dao. His huge Luck was one of his greatest advantages, allowing him to get this far. Without his Luck, how would he have encountered all the opportunities that made up the cornerstones of his cultivation system? Without his Luck, he would have died and been forgotten long ago.

Sacrificing all that to enter Hegemony safely? Forget about it.

No, this was a test that needed to be overcome, though that didn’t mean he should stand there and eat the lightning bolts. Zac was intimately connected to the domain around him. It was generated by his Dao and Energy from his core, so he roused the domain to meet the gathering bolt. The sky had turned into a huge vortex, and the purple lightning in its center was so condensed, it had almost turned red.

Becoming a Hegemon didn’t mean he’d gained a connection to the Daos like a cultivator. However, Zac could still use the same types of tricks as he did when forming Dao Braids. The Dao Apparitions turned into streaks of light, forming nine rivers that wound into a simple but tremendously powerful spiral. In reality, it looked more like a hurricane than a braid, spinning in the opposite direction of the clouds.

A rumbling roar shook all creation as the first bolt descended, painting the mountain range crimson as it streaked toward Zac. Every step was a hard-fought battle where Zac fought back with everything he had. The bolt grew thinner and weaker the closer it came until it was fully consumed. The first bolt hadn’t even managed to touch Zac’s robes, a testament to his ungodly foundations.

The bolt’s descent had been cut short but still brought benefits. The domain was part of him, and his Dao had been greatly consolidated by pitting itself against the Tribulation Lightning. It didn’t provide any breakthroughs, but Zac felt like a hidden blockage had been shaken loose in his mind. His path ahead felt wider, and his Daos full of potential.

Though handled quickly, it hadn’t come without a cost. The seemingly boundless domain had been almost fully drained in one go, leaving him without outer protection for the second bolt. Zac tried to rouse his will to reform some of it, but his speed was nothing when faced against an angry sky. The lightning ramped up at shocking speed, passing energy levels Zac only expected for the third bolt.

The whole universe was teetering at the brink of collapse as small red strings appeared all around him. They felt like the fault lines of reality, forced to the dimensional forefront from the accumulating energies above. The threat of annihilation surrounded him, and Zac felt extremely exposed without the domain to keep him safe.

Was it because of his Technocrat heritage, or was it for cultivating not one but two boundless Daos? Or was it his bloodline and its connection to the Void? No matter the reason, the threat far exceeded Zac’s wildest expectations. However, he wasn’t given any time to adapt or prepare. The sky was so energetic that the second bolt was spat out on the heels of the first.

Zac’s mind screamed of danger as the remnant energies of the Dao Braid were ripped to shreds without putting up much of a fight. Zac acted on instinct as he activated [Void Zone] just before the pillar of red hit him. A zone separated from the Heavens was erected, and the blinding light dimmed as it entered.

Not even the Void Emperor’s abilities could deal with the second bolt of Tribulation Lightning. It forced its way through the Void, and the meter-wide pillar condensed to the width of a finger that hit Zac square on his forehead.

The pain was instantaneous and ubiquitous. His Soul Aperture crackled, his pathways were turned into conducive copper wiring, and the vortices in his cells and nodes fluctuated precariously from being overwhelmed by the sudden influx of energy. The only thing unscathed was the Duplicity Core.

The lightning ignored it for some reason, though that didn’t apply to the Cosmic Core within. If anything, it was the Tribulation Lightning’s main target, and it flooded the core through the still-open hatch. The core that had just stabilized after months of eruptions ran amok as the punishing lightning squeezed into its every crevasse.

The whole thing shuddered as it was forced into a brutal struggle for survival of fighting fire with fire, and a pain Zac had never felt before made him keel over and lose control of his flight. He crashed into the flat peak of Mount Illumination, but the collision was nothing compared to the punishment his body endured from within.

Everything was set aflame and breaking apart. Every part of his body was about to be destroyed, and the Tribulation Lightning may as well have been a bottomless ocean. Zac tried to withstand the onslaught using the Void and his Daos, but it wasn’t enough.

He was inviting disaster but saw no option but to release his [Void Heart]. It was the only part of his body that seemed excited by the sudden presence of such unique energy, and it pounced on the Tribulation Lightning the second it was released. A deep thud cut the lightning’s momentum in half, and a second ground it to a halt.

A third dragged a large chunk of red lightning over, and Zac witnessed a familiar scene. The lightning had met its nemesis and suddenly wanted to escape rather than advance. This time, there was a startling difference. Some Tribulation Lightning entered the Hidden Node, but Zac was shocked to see mysterious patterns appear on the Duplicity Core as it swallowed even more than [Void Heart].

Between the two, not a spark managed to escape Zac’s body before the Tribulation Lightning was consumed. Only the Cosmic Core’s lightning was left alone, and it soon exhausted the invading force after it became rootless. Zac could feel something had shifted within the core from the experience, but he had no chance to investigate what because a lot of things happened at once.

For one, stabbing pain in his chest confirmed his fear and the reason he wanted to hold off on using his [Void Heart]. The Hidden Node had bested the second bolt, but it was completely stuffed. The tribulation held far more destructive force than the previous ones, and a few sparks leaked out of the vortex before it stabilized. There was no way it could help him with the final and most dangerous attack.

The Duplicity Core didn’t seem to have the same trouble, but it acted out in a different way. It released foreign ripples that bounced around inside its hollow center, and the runes across its surface writhed like they’d come alive. Zac was worried for a second that the Specialty Core was going out of control after finding Zac’s blueprint hadn’t followed Kayar-Elu’s original plan for their experiment.

However, it soon became apparent the Technocrat housing was scanning the newly formed core and was rearranging itself to fit the creation, using the tribulation as fuel for the process. Zac was happy to see it work as he’d hoped, but why now? Couldn’t it have waited a bit longer?

The Heavens hadn’t expected its second attack to be dealt with so swiftly, but it was already gearing up for its final punishment. Furthermore, there was no doubt the Heavens had taken offense to having its punishment become fodder. Unfathomable pressure built above Zac’s head, looking like a red sun of utter destruction that tried to break through the clouds. It formed a convex bulge of pure lightning, pushing down toward Mount Illumination.

The Duplicity Core had bought some time, but that didn’t solve his issue. Zac’s trump card against the final bolt was gone, leaving him utterly exposed. Surviving the force accumulating above his head with grit and willpower was impossible. Zac scrambled for a solution, reluctantly turning to the two spirals in his Soul Aperture.

The aperture had been annealed by the lightning just like the rest of his body, but that wasn’t what Zac was interested in. He was rather thinking about the hidden reserves of Creation and Oblivion Energy locked inside the nebulous spirals around his Soul Cores. Some had been refined and turned into nourishment for his soul and body over the past three months, but most of it remained.

Forcibly using all that energy would come at a high cost, and he had no idea if it would even be effective against the Tribulation Lightning. But what else could he do? Zac mentally prepared himself to unleash the same thing he’d once used to deal with the Qriz’Ul King—fusing Oblivion and Creation into an unstable bomb of false Chaos.

The force of such a thing would far surpass his previous experiment, considering it would be powered by all the excess energy from the Remnants. If there was anything in his repertoire that could rebuff the ultimate judgement of the Heavens, it was that. Of course, he didn’t have much more confidence he’d survive his own attack than the tribulation.

Just as Zac was about to drag the energy out of the spirals, another shift occurred in his body. The Duplicity Core stopped rearranging itself and released a powerful force containing hints of the Tribulation Lightning itself. This pulse wasn’t like the earlier toll and stopped just five meters away from Zac’s body, forming a solid barrier that looked like a perfect replica of the Duplicity Core itself.

Zac looked up at the barrier with shock, recognizing its origin. Some of it came from the energy within the Duplicity Core, but it was the array his mother had gifted him to hide his situation. It had always rested by his Duplicity Core, invisible even to him, to the point he mostly forgot it was there. Today, it created a last bastion of protection against the Heavens.

Looking at the barrier filled Zac with a confusing mix of emotions. Its appearance dragged out thoughts he’d sealed away until he had the power to look for Kenzie and Leandra in earnest. Was Leandra protecting him, her son, or was it a safeguard to protect her investment?

A clap of furious thunder pushed those thoughts back to the recesses of Zac’s mind, and innumerable wounds opened across his body. The sense of being targeted was rapidly weakening, and the ball of condensed lightning deflated. It was similar to before he finished his core, like the Heavens had trouble locating him.

So the Kayar-Elu had made some preparations, at least. The increased severity of the tribulation was likely due to their experiments, and for once, Zac didn’t mind the hidden hand manipulating him from the shadows. Better that than dying.

Zac hesitated a moment before forgoing his plan of using the Remnant energy. More than 80% of the lightning ball’s energy had spread through the endless clouds. What remained should be possible to endure without taking such a crazy risk.

Thousand upon thousands of red bolts rained upon the ground, lashing out at everything. It looked like the end—the end of the world, the Dao, and the Era itself. A true apocalypse unfolded around him, and Zac was in the eye of the storm. A scream of agony was drowned out by the crackling roar of the lightning sea that appeared between the mountain peaks. Leandra’s array had hidden his presence, but it had done nothing to block the lightning itself.

A painful stab made Zac keel over, but the source wasn’t the lightning rampaging through his body. The Duplicity Core had tapped into his body, forcibly extracting all his Void Energy just as he was about to use it to fight off the tribulation. Zac was left without his main defenses against the lightning as multiple vortices opened up around him. Simultaneously, Zac could feel an odd connection with pockets of space across the whole domain.

And then came the energy. Life and Death, agitated by the aggressive force of the scattered Tribulation Lightning, poured over in droves, the quantities far surpassing what had been supplied by the Dao Threads. A different form of rumbles created reverberations that shook Zac’s bones as the closest mountain crumbled, its spirituality fully drained.

Zac was still grappling with the streaks of crackling red ravaging his body and could only look on with horror as it all poured into the Duplicity Core. At first, Zac feared the core wanted to forcibly elevate his Quantum Core, something he wasn’t sure he could withstand. Thankfully, only a trickle reached the core, while most were consumed and disappeared.

It was like the Duplicity Core had been topped up with fuel after running empty, and the wriggling transformation across its surface resumed. It was happily continuing its evolution, uncaring that Zac was still fighting for his life. Zac slumped onto the ground, his skin scorched and smoke releasing from his pores.

He took out an axe and drew a deep cut across his arm, releasing a large stream of ichor that crackled with red lightning. Despite having been through hell and back, Zac smiled while looking up at the sky. The clouds were filled with reluctance, but they were slowly dispersing after finishing their “Minor” Tribulation. It had already pushed the envelope to unleash such force against a D-grade cultivator and had nothing left to throw at him.

The ichor he’d excised contained the last of the lightning, given up because he didn’t have anywhere to use it. His soul couldn’t take any more tempering, and his cells were on the brink of collapse. Instead of trying to endure another round of refinement, he was better off just giving it up.

The tribulation was over, and he was mostly in one piece, yet the Duplicity Core hadn’t finished its work. A second mountain collapsed, and then a third, the scene reminiscent of his bloodline breakthroughs. In this case, he wasn’t the beneficiary, though. At least not directly. His bloodline wasn’t making any headway, and any attempt at siphoning some of the bountiful energy was rebuffed.

Zac could only watch on as the Duplicity Core continued its business. Truthfully, he was thankful for the respite. It wasn’t just the near-death experience just now, but the last months in general. Constantly being alert and at attention wore him down, and he had to fight the urge to enter a restorative hibernation.

He couldn’t let himself sleep at this juncture. He needed to observe what the Duplicity Core did with his Cosmic Core. What if he missed something important that would cause trouble when upgrading his core in the future? Zac took out some healing tonics and relaxed while the neighborhood was turned into a wasteland.

Eventually, the process stopped, leaving Zac frowning. For one, it didn’t feel like the Duplicity Core and Cosmic Core had connected yet. And since the cores weren’t connected, neither was Cosmic Core linked to his pathways. Yet, the vortices remained as the Duplicity Core swallowed unfathomable amounts of energy.

Then Zac realized what was going on.

It was waiting for him.

How could it possibly finish the process when his core wasn’t finished? His Cosmic Core had undergone a powerful refinement and was far more condensed than before. However, there was one final step needed to make things official. There was only one issue. How was he supposed to complete that step here?

Zac hesitantly looked around the ruins. His mansion was gone, disintegrated by the unfocused attack of the Heavens. Null didn’t answer his call either. Zac opted to speak with the sky. Seeing how chaotic his ascent had been and the damage he was still causing, someone was undoubtedly keeping watch.

“I want to pick a class,” Zac said.

His request was granted through a flash of light that made him close his eyes. When they opened, a Nexus Node waited right in front of him. Zac’s looked at the glimmering crystal with anticipation. The final piece of the puzzle was simple enough, yet the one Zac had looked forward to the most.

Pick a class, and let the System engrave its runes onto your core.

82

THE PATH FORWARD

Zac’s body was absolutely wrung dry after enduring the tribulation, yet he felt like a million bucks as he dragged himself toward the Nexus Node. He only briefly stopped, looking to his core. It had shrunk to two-thirds of its original size, emitting a condensed aura of power. It was also covered in small cracks, and it still released the occasional burst of unstable energy.

The insides of the Duplicity Core were the only spot that hadn’t been drained by his Hidden Node and the Duplicity Core, and his core had just finished rooting it all out. Zac knew picking a class with a damaged core wasn’t an issue, but should he wait a bit longer? It would give him some time to recover.

No, that wasn’t an option. A deep rumble shifted his insides as yet another mountain crumbled in the distance. The Duplicity Core was insatiable, and Zac wasn’t sure how much it could take. It had stopped its transformation while waiting for him to pick a class, but what if he delayed too long? The Technocrat invention had already provided enough surprises. He didn’t want to wait to find out if some fail-safes were installed to avoid overloading the Duplicity Core with energy.

Better he pick now before his mother somehow picked for him.

The Nexus Node was different from the one back home. For one, it was only the size of a football, making it feel like a portable version. The dense golden scripts across its surface proved it was anything but simple, though. Between the runes and the stable aura it emitted, Zac suspected it was far superior to the normal ones he’d encountered thus far.

This was the moment he’d been eagerly expecting, and his heart rang with anticipation as he placed his hand on the smooth surface. Having endured the tribulation of the Boundless Heaven, the System wouldn’t target him with another trial of its own. Only cultivators within Heaven’s Path would have to deal with the tests he’d endured when entering E-grade.

Zac had originally been disappointed by that. Entering Hegemony would simultaneously attack you with all three types of tribulations, but so what? All aspects of his cultivation were beyond ordinary, be it his body, soul, or heart. Conversely, the experience had uncovered some sealed memories of his past. This time, he wouldn’t get such an opportunity. Now, Zac was only relieved. The process and tribulation left him in a far worse state than he’d expected. He just wanted to get things over with now so that he could rest.

There was a small risk you wouldn’t have any options waiting for you if the System didn’t deem you worthy. But that was quite rare and generally reserved for those who cheated their way into Hegemony, completely relying on pills or treasures. If you managed to form a core based on your Daos, you’d have at least one class waiting for you.

Zac felt a pulse enter his body, and it was like the Duplicity Core had entered a quantum state as it hid from the presence. Zac could feel the Nexus Node investigate his pathways and core, and a screen soon appeared.

Core Formation Successful

Design: 87% unique.

Imperfections: Low (10-100).

Evaluation: Middle-quality, S-grade Energy Capacity, S-grade Potential, S-grade level of Innovation.

Zac hadn’t expected to get a report card, but he was flush with pride at the evaluation. Besides the Middle-quality, which Zac had already known about, every evaluation was top-notch. Capacity and potential were the most important ones. The former meant he’d be able to draw far more power from his core than normal Hegemons, and the latter undoubtedly meant potential for upgrades.

These two being valued at S-grade meant there were absolutely no problems taking his core all the way to Monarchy. Zac was the least surprised over the S-grade Innovation evaluation. His core was unique and unprecedented. If his core didn’t warrant S-grade, none did. However, that particular evaluation was more for the System than himself.

The line reminded Zac of his time in the Technocrat Research Base, where getting the Pathstrider-title marked him for further training. S-grade Innovation was like being branded an excellent experimental subject, which probably meant the System would throw more trouble your way to nurture you. Then again, that wasn’t anything new, so Zac didn’t mind too much.

The System seemed to be tabulating the results before showing his class options. Each second crawled by, and Zac breathed in relief when the screen finally updated. It was official. He wasn’t one of the unlucky few. Zac hadn’t been worried his Daos or accomplishments would be insufficient, but rather that his odd core would make it difficult for the System to generate suitable classes.

He’d been tormenting himself for nothing. There was not one, but three choices available to him.

Base Attributes Per Level:

Epic: 100 / 150 / 200.

Arcane: 115 / 170 / 225.

[Option 1]

Name: [D-Epic] Arcadia’s Champion.

Fixed Attributes: Strength +300 / 450 / 600, Vitality: +150 / 225 / 300.

Free Attributes: +100 / 150 / 200.

Even Paradise needs a champion, an unrelenting storm of violence.

Name: [D-Epic] Desolation’s Warden.

Fixed Attributes: Strength +250 / 375 / 500, Endurance +150 / 225 / 300, Wisdom +75 / 100 / 150.

Free Attributes: +75 / 125 / 150.

Bind them to your calamity. Pave your path with blood and bones. Emerge stronger.

[Option 2]

Name: [D-Epic] Primeval Edge.

Fixed Attributes: Strength +250 / 375 / 500, Dexterity +75 / 100 / 150, Vitality +200 / 300 / 400.

Free Attributes: +50 / 75 / 100.

As Life was born, so was struggle. Become the primeval blade, reborn through battle.

Name: [D-Epic] Predestination’s Judge.

Fixed Attributes: Strength +275 / 400 / 550, Dexterity +50 / 75 / 100, Endurance +200 / 300 / 400.

Free Attributes: +50 / 75 / 100.

As Death was born, so was struggle. Become the judge’s blade, the cessation of all.

[Option 3]

Name: [D-Arcane] Evolutionary Precursor

Fixed Attributes: Strength +300 / 450 / 600, Dexterity +100 / 150 / 200, Vitality +150 / 225 / 300

Free Attributes: +100 / 150 / 200

Progress through struggle, future seized, not given.

Name: [D-Arcane] Inexorable Apostle

Fixed Attributes: Strength +325 / 475 / 650, Dexterity +75 / 125 / 150, Endurance +150 / 225 / 300.

Free Attributes: 100 / 150 / 200

Explosive stillness, fate become nourishment to your ascent.

The churning vortices around him were a reminder his time was limited, but Zac still went over his options word by word. Only being presented with three options was a step down from his previous breakthrough when he got the full set of five. Of course, it made sense.

Back in the F-grade, he’d still been finding his way. His power came from a mottled assortment of opportunities that had yet to crystallize into a cohesive system, let alone a path. Today, his understanding of cultivation was leagues ahead. There was no confusion, no hesitation—only faith and determination.

What would be the point of the System offering a bunch of classes that would diverge from his path? In reality, the screen presented Zac with a different choice. Did he want to confirm his path, or did he want to keep his options open?

Confirming his path meant getting the Arcane classes, which came with higher attributes and more advanced forms of nurturing. But it also meant his future would grow narrow. It would be almost impossible for him to change course like he had multiple times in the E-grade. He would instead enter the refinement stage of his cultivation, where he removed imperfections while moving toward the peak of his path.

The Arcane classes, Evolutionary Precursor and Inexorable Apostle, were clearly modeled after his stances, which were the truest expression of his path. The flavor text reflected his understanding of Life and Death, where Life represented possibility and Death represented dominion. One broke the chains of fate, while the other took control over fate.

The Epic classes represented freedom. Who knew what the future held? Perhaps there would be something inside Ultom that completely threw his path on its head, making him strive for something greater. It would mean a smaller boost of attributes, but that wasn’t that big of a deal. He was already getting far more attributes than anyone else by having two classes.

The two sets of Epic options were quite straightforward. The first duo, Arcadia’s Champion and Desolation’s Warden, were straight upgrades of his current classes. They would add more of the same, their attribute distribution almost identical to Edge of Arcadia and Fetters of Desolation. Picking this choice would likely provide the smoothest transition, and he would be able to hit the ground running.

Primeval Edge and Predestination’s Judge moved his classes toward his path without fully stepping onto it. Its attribute distribution better aligned with his Daos and the set of Arcane classes. It was the best of both worlds, adapted to his style without locking him in like an Arcane class.

Three options, all with their own advantages, and none with any direct flaws like many of his options last time. No matter what he picked, he would be well equipped for the upcoming war and the trial inside the Left Imperial Palace. Yet for Zac, it wasn’t a difficult choice—he’d decided the second he saw the classes.

He was going with the Arcane classes.

A surge of energy filled Zac’s body as he provided the Nexus Node with his answer, this one provided by the cosmos itself rather than through the forceful extraction of the surrounding spirituality. Mysterious runes sank into the channels he’d arduously crafted while waves of change rippled through his pathways. Fractals expanded and grew more exquisite, where ten patterns became one hundred to accommodate greater energies and deeper Daos.

The transformation of his core and pathways were soon mirrored on the Duplicity Core, confirming Zac’s suspicion it was waiting for his class choice to finish the transformation. It formed a resonance with the evolving core, and Zac gasped as he finally sensed a weak connection to his Cosmic Core. It was a bottomless ocean of pure power, right there for the taking.

The sky rumbled as Zac’s aura burst forth, like a star was born on the ruins of his manor. Every breath was a death and rebirth as his hard work culminated in a loop of empowerment. His drained cells were filled with life-giving streams of sturdy energy as his Cosmic Core integrated with his body. The growing waves of power coursing through his pathways were a tidal wave pushing him forward. There wasn’t much for Zac to do at this point but let himself be washed over by the truths he’d seized from the Heavens. He let his mind drift while keeping an eye on the process.

He’d been so focused on this unsurmountable roadblock for so long, and he could finally put it behind him and look to the future. The face of his sister appeared in his mind’s eye, and Kenzie was quickly joined by the people waiting for him back on Earth. Hegemony was only a means to an end. It was the key to achieving his goals. Who knew what kind of situation waited for him on the outside?

The war. Ultom and the Left Imperial Palace. Saving his sister. Each came with mortal danger that would push him to his limits.

He was finally ready.

Zac will return in Defiance of the Fall BOOK THIRTEEN!

THANK YOU FOR READING DEFIANCE OF THE FALL 12

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ALSO IN SERIES:

DEFIANCE OF THE FALL

BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

BOOK THREE

BOOK FOUR

BOOK FIVE

BOOK SIX

BOOK SEVEN

BOOK EIGHT

BOOK NINE

BOOK TEN

BOOK ELEVEN

BOOK TWELVE

BOOK THIRTEEN

Check out the series here! (tap or scan)

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