Defiance of the Fall

The conversation was kept short as both needed to focus on their tasks. Having Ogras back by his side was a comfort, though Zac would have been happier if the demon had managed to get out ahead of schedule. Things with the flower had progressed roughly as he’d expected, barring a critical detail. Hidden Earth’s notes said the energy was split fifty-fifty between petals and pistil. That was woefully inaccurate.

The eight petals worth of Void Energy he’d pulled into the [Fuxi Mountain Gate] at best accounted for a fifth of the flower’s accumulations. Zac had only realized just how much Void Energy the flower’s central spatial fold was hiding after going through half the petals. Each petal was like a remote fortress guarding the capital, preventing hostile forces from peering through the defensive layer of formations.

Zac doubted Hidden Earth would have made such a significant miscalculation. The [Twin Eclipse] must have expanded its Inner World since his death. It might even have one foot into the next stage. It would explain why the palpitations he got from the pistil were much more intense than what he felt from the Void Energy stored in the petals.

Hindsight was 20-20, but Zac should really have guessed as much from the crater’s scope and the other clues. The Hidden Earth Abode had provided the flower with fertile soil and endless nourishment for millions of years in a tailormade environment. It would have been pushed onward whether it wanted to or not.

There was simply no way Zac could extract the pistil’s energies with his current method, seeing how a few petals had literally cost him an arm and a leg. Replacing his lost limbs with Creation Energy wasn’t a viable solution, even if he still had ample stores of Creation Energy left in his five shards. It didn’t even matter that the cost of using the Remnants had greatly decreased.

Most of it was thanks to overcoming the Atavism. The drain on personality and longevity was mostly the ancient entities demanding payment for borrowing their power. Incorporating the concepts of Creation and Oblivion into his Daos also made it easier to utilize the energies. Completely removing the cost needed a fundamental transformation of the Remnants, though. It would break the Law of Balance, and the drain was part of their nature.

Rather than the Remnants, the problem was that newly-regrown flesh needed a while to fully incorporate his many advantages, like his bloodlines and constitutions. Such limbs were unsurprisingly not up to the task. Zac had already tried regrowing a few fingers while dealing with the petals, and they’d instantly exploded when trying to take on the C-grade energy.

Zac also couldn’t take it nice and slow, dealing with the pistil at a manageable pace. He didn’t have the final say on how much energy to send through. Opening an outlet into the flower’s Inner World was an irreversible process that destabilized it further. The near-death eruptions would have been even crazier if Zac didn’t act as an emergency valve, siphoning energy to lower the internal pressure. He didn’t even want to imagine the amount of energy he’d need to draw out of the pistil to stop it from directly exploding.

That wasn’t to say he was out of options, especially now that Ogras was here to share the load. Of course, the demon would have to play a minor role while staying inside [Void Zone]. He was limited to using his shadows, which were essentially parts of his body, to block the errant streaks of Inverse Dao that entered his nullification zone. Truth be told, Zac was surprised Ogras managed even that much while he kept [Void Zone] at maximum strength.

‘Let me know if it becomes too much,’ Zac said and continued working on the Void.

While he felt bad, turning off the Bloodline Talent wasn’t an option. The chamber’s trapped energies had reached terrifying levels, and maintaining a survivable environment cost huge amounts of Void Energy. Zac would have run out long ago if he hadn’t been force-fed deadly levels of the flower’s excess. Whether virtuous or vicious, the forced absorption and subsequent expenditure had formed a self-propagating cycle that replaced his need to eat Void Treasures.

They wouldn’t need to endure much longer, though Zac had no earthly way to know what would happen when he’d dealt with the final petal. At the very least, it would push the surrounding mayhem and spatial decay to the next level.

The memory domain displayed a surprising resilience despite its fading faith, so survival could very well come down to the engraved rock held against his thigh. While Zac suffered, the [Fuxi Mountain Gate] flourished. He had no way to observe its inner state with a torrent of Void Energy blocking the entrance, but any hints of weakness were gone.

The ancient stone felt incredibly sturdy, even exhibiting a pressure similar to the weight of an Inner World. If Zac wasn’t mistaken, it was also partly responsible for the accelerated decay of Faith Energy. The golden runes on its surface seemed to draw from its surroundings to maintain the isolation. Whether the change meant [Fuxi Mountain Gate] was ready for Zac’s backup plan remained to be seen.

‘Careful!’ Zac suddenly warned when a surge of Void Energy destroyed another chunk of flesh. The Void petal was buckling, and there were no siblings to maintain the peace.

To keep things balanced, the Dao petal trembled and released a stream of energy in the opposite direction. Even its wayward streaks were much deadlier than the constant leakage, and it shouldn’t be something Ogras could deal with in his restricted state. The streaks coming their way were only marginally weakened by the nullification domain.

A wraith appeared to stand before him just when Zac planned to deal with the threat with another activation of [Void Mountain]. Zac thought he could sense a hint of reluctance in its gait before it consumed the Inverse Dao and flew away. It lasted less than a second before exploding, and one second was more than enough time to cover quite a distance. The unstable energies were absorbed by the dimensional layers before they could pose a threat.

The salvo was the beginning of the end, and twelve more wraiths had to make the ultimate sacrifice as Zac absorbed the last of the Void petals. The petal withered and disappeared, destroying the final node of the flower’s outer formation. Whatever concepts held the hovering Dao petal in place was gone, causing it to drift away like an unmoored ship set ablaze by its highly volatile cargo.

Even now, there were no signs of the memory domain collapsing or of Spatial Tears leading to the misty sea outside. It was time to get creative.

“Get ready!” Zac roared as his arms wriggled and regrew in the blink of an eye.

Zac grabbed the trembling pistil, which felt like holding a sun, and furiously pushed it against the [Fuxi Mountain Gate]’s opening. It didn’t enter, but Zac saw a flicker of hope when the rejection wasn’t absolute. Rather than trying to push the flower through solid matter, it felt like squeezing it through a dense layer of sand.

Squeezing it through would take time—something Zac didn’t have. The drifting Dao petal was expanding as its spatial folds unraveled. It was about to go supernova, and the surrounding dimensional layers looked ready to join it. If that wasn’t enough to worry about, the trembling core of the [Eclipse Twin] seemed intent on getting revenge on the world for having all its petals plucked.

Fueled by fear and madness, Zac dug his fingers into a deep wound on his side to pull out a ring. Since time was the problem, he just had to buy some. The ring transformed into [Verun’s Bite], roaring and ready for war. Zac’s Spatial Rings were left inside the laceration for safekeeping. His body was still a battlefield filled with Void and hostile Dao, but the environment could be considered a haven compared to the deteriorating surroundings.

Zac’s arm crumbled from the pistil’s latent energies as he swung his axe downward. It successfully severed the flower’s stem, and a freshly printed arm gripped the axe and released a fractal blade filled with Zac’s Daos. It tore into the realmgate the flower once grew from, and the attack proved enough to seal it. The array keeping the nourishing portal active had been destroyed shortly after Zac began his work, and it had been kept open by the [Eclipse Flower] itself.

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Having its stem cut and losing its connection to his homeworld weakened the C-grade flower, and the [Fuxi Mountain Gate]’s rejection lessened as a result. Seeing it wasn’t enough, Zac swung his weapon one more time while rallying his Splinters of Oblivion. A small yet terrifying blade holding an aura of extinction appeared. This time, his attack was aimed directly at the trembling flowerhead.

Despite the terrifying, concentrated power of [Extinction Event], Zac only managed to leave a small nick. That blemish became the emergency valve Zac needed, though creating it was no different than opening Pandora’s Box. A monstrous sputter of unchained Void erased the floundering Dao petal before it could erupt. That was only the prelude. Cracks spread from the Oblivion-infused scar, casting shadows in the form of miles-wide Spatial Tears.

It was a good thing Zac hadn’t bothered repairing his eyes yet. They would just have been destroyed again after exposing him to the outrageously condensed spirituality peeking out of the pistil. The aura was enough to push Zac’s body to a breaking point even before it began leaking energy, and Ogras’s shadows were rapidly fading.

Zac confirmed that personally entering the gate was still impossible while pushing his Void Emperor bloodline to its limits. Six small vortices sprung up around Zac at the edge of [Void Zone], greedily absorbing both the leaking Void energy and lingering waves of Inverse Dao. The tumultuous process of absorbing the [Eclipse Twin] made it impossible to say whether his painful feast had helped recover his bloodline or damaged it further. However, Zac had more than enough Void Energy rampaging through his veins to open gates to his personal Void.

Doing so in his fight against Kator had come at a significant cost, and Zac knew he might very well be undoing months of recovery. Surviving took precedence over such concerns. He and Ogras were out for the count if he closed the vortices before getting away from the [Eclipse Twin].

While the vortices bought a moment of peace, Zac focused all his attention on the [Fuxi Mountain Gate]. While keeping the pressure on the pistil, Zac pushed as many tendrils of Void and Mental Energy into the entrance as he could. It worked! A seventh flickering Void Vortex opened inside the relic’s separate space, acting like a miniature black hole that tugged on its surroundings.

The burning sea of Imperial Faith and the scarred gate effortlessly ignored the pull from Zac’s bloodline. The intended target did not. With something pulling from the other side, the last piece of the [Eclipse Twin] swiftly phased into the Holy Relic—but not before giving the world a final goodbye. Just before the severed stem entered the stone, it spat out a concoction of foundering space and a million years of cultivation.

Zac urgently closed the vortex leading to his own Void before it could swallow the C-grade flower. Doing so, Zac also lost his view of the [Fuxi Mountain Gate]. He had bigger fish to fry than watching the Holy Relic digest the latest offering. The whole realm groaned as the beam of supremely condensed Void swept forth with incredible speed. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving a terrifying blemish on reality. The Heavens momentarily held its breath before madness descended.

The countless Spatial Tears and unstable dimensional fragments were no longer kept in check. If anything, they were bolstered by the Void beam exhausting what was left of the region’s spatial integrity. They worked together to trigger a complete dimensional collapse with such efficacy it may as well have been rehearsed.

A thousand microscopic worlds born from the C-grade treasure were unmoored, turning them into frenzied beasts that targeted their own. Half immediately disappeared, becoming casualties in the war between the Inverse Peak and the Void. The rest were consumed by the Spatial Tears, which began expanding without any apparent limits. With the domains gone, there was also nothing to keep the Dipper Mountain’s spiritual surge at bay.

Horrific amounts of energy rushed toward their position, attracted by the vacuum created by Void and the suction from the Spatial Tears. A vast accumulation of inverse truth blended with the fractures. True to its nature, the Inverse Dao began transforming the dimensional cracks. The rebirths mostly ended in abrupt failure, creating deadly fireworks that made Zac’s Soul Sense tremble and shy away.

Only a fifth of the tears stabilized and expanded after consuming the Dipper Mountain’s lifeblood, having turned into portals leading to other planes. Most had aligned with the Lowest Plane or the realm behind the Dipper Mountains, but not all of them. With so many unpredictable factors coinciding, a few spatial tears gained completely alien qualities.

The environment was thrown into greater chaos as Daos from more than half the peaks, and their accompanying energies poured into the Hidden Earth Abode. The growing tempest even seemed to consume the hidden concepts that kept the trial going, causing powerful temporal fluctuations that agitated Zac’s old wounds.

Zac was only marginally safe thanks to standing in the eye of the storm. He and Ogras were surrounded by a faltering barrier of the [Eclipse Twin]’s Void, which in turn were kept at bay by his vortices. The latter were about to collapse before even facing the storm. Zac had gone so far beyond any safe limits he didn’t dare think of what was going on in the depths of his Void Emperor bloodline.

Heart beating like a drum, Zac’s head swiveled back and forth in search of the final piece of the puzzle. Despite the terrifying view, things had gone mostly as he’d hoped when striking the pistil. The calamity about to descend on the Dipper Mountains might almost be as intense as the original timeline, but what did he care?

Where was it? The only thing missing from the mercurial tapestry was a path out of this crappy place. Zac cursed with anxiety. They’d seen such exits inside Ivar Serpico’s Inner World, so why didn’t at least one appear among the thousand Spatial Tears? And how the hell hadn’t the memory domain collapsed?

Had they misunderstood what’d happen when a domain ended like Black Zenith, misunderstood the very nature of memory domains? Was the path back to the present already gone, leaving them stuck inside the world’s memory?

The storm’s intensity only grew as boundless energy poured into the world from the multiplying cracks. Zac’s Danger Sense was screaming so loudly he could barely think. It was all building toward some form of singularity. Like brought forth by the realization, it happened at once. Faith failed, Time unraveled, and Space shattered like a broken mirror.

Zac’s mind briefly shut down when concepts far exceeding his comprehension appeared in the midst of reality’s collapse. They weren’t just facing the mundane Daos who’d joined hands to bring down the Dipper Mountains. Zac felt like he’d pulled away the curtain, exposing him and his companion to the hair-raising presence hiding behind—something that far exceeded Antuka, the ancient A-grade Crocodile.

Time and Karma were joined by countless subordinate concepts to create a force able to overturn the Heavens themselves. It was a machine made from so many components that Zac’s Soul Cores almost burst from hearing their clatter. Zac finally understood what he’d brought forth. They’d caught a glimpse of the Fifth Pillar itself.

Struggling to hold onto his sanity, Zac escaped into the closest portal. It wasn’t the kind he’d held out for, but staying meant certain death. The portal collapsed only moments later, but the danger had followed them through. Zac had appeared in a disorienting gap between realities not too dissimilar to the one they escaped. The Pillar’s terrifying presence was still there, only slightly weakened.

‘What fresh hell is this?’ a weak voice wheezed.

The scene was familiar to the Void Star’s bridge. They were surrounded by innumerable jagged windows into different worlds. Zac took in the surroundings with wild eyes, confirming they didn’t lead back to the Dipper Mountains. They didn’t have any apparent connection to the spatial tears or the events surrounding the Hidden Earth Abode.

Not two of the myriad views were the same, and only a fraction of them emitted the aura of the Inverse Peak or Lower Planes. The windows didn’t even seem to point toward the same point in time. Some had a distinctly more ancient aura than others, and their Dao ranged from rough and primal to almost matching the present.

Were the places real or fake? Did the windows lead to specific memories or different parts of the Left Imperial? Zac’s mind was a mess as he tried to figure out what to do while resisting the Pillar’s aura and keeping his internal pressure in check. It was at that time that Ogras sprung into action.

‘This way!’ Ogras shouted, dragging Zac toward a random world.

They appeared mid-air, facing a salmon-colored tower standing at the edge overlooking a vast, bottomless crater. Zac only had time to confirm it wasn’t the Dipper Mountain’s crater before a powerful sense of rejection made the world shatter. They were back inside the world of countless mirrors like they’d never left, facing a new seat of gateways.

Ogras wasn’t willing to give up and directly lunged him into another world. It looked nothing like the region where they entered the memory domain, making Zac wonder if the demon was picking them at random out of desperation.

“Why—”A deep tremor coming from the depths of his bloodline foiled Zac’s attempt to ask what Ogras was up to. Zac felt stabbing pains as countless microscopic gates were being forced open by a power far exceeding what they could contain. The [Eclipse Twin]’s spirituality was about to escape from his personal Void.

Zac had no time to worry about Ogras jumping from world to world in a frantic attempt to escape the Fifth Pillar’s pathbreaking aura. He rallied his Bloodline one last time to open another Void Vortex. This time, it was to release its catch. There’d be nothing left of him if the pistil’s Peak C-grade Void Energy was allowed to escape through his cells.

Ogras appeared to understand what was going on, and he fled with even greater urgency. Foreign worlds flickered one after another while Zac desperately tried to excise the unbearable energies. The vortices didn’t last long, forcing him to repeatedly conjure new ones. Thus, a trail of blood and Void was left in their wake.

No matter what he did, the pressure only kept building. Just when Zac was about to lose control, the surroundings stopped flickering. The world had been frozen in place, including the Zac and the energy that was about to go supernova. Even the Fifth Pillar had been pushed away, preventing them from being dragged back to its side.

“This place,”Ogras said, eyes wide with shock and confusion as familiar lines began spreading across his body.

Zac could barely hear him. His eyes were glued to the approaching procession and the coffin in its center.