Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 1141: Guiding Light

There was one more potential explanation for the [Court Cycle Token]'s energy loss, apart from the drain of opening doors—an explanation Zac had staunchly refused to entertain until now. However, sensing Emily's rescue beacon within the storm forced those insidious whispers to the surface. It might have been one of his sealbearers dying, where Emily and Ra'Klid faced the greatest danger. And Ra'Klid couldn't be the reason for the dip since Zac had yet to infuse the demon's seal into the token.

Sensing Emily's beacon through the turbulent storm filled Zac with fear and hope. Waiting for the Dravorak to find a stable path into the tower was out of the question, but his impulsive action left him floundering. He'd lost the signal the moment he entered the hurricane, and it was impossible to gain his bearings.

Zac's energy was rapidly consumed by [Ossuary Bulwark], despite its defensive domain being only marginally better at defending against the onslaught than [Void Zone]. It protected his body, but scars were constantly added to his armor while streams of chaotic energy slipped right through the cracks. [Void Heart] still hadn't returned the mysterious force from before and was unwilling to stop its refinement to deal with the new invading energies.

The influx was still manageable by relying on his Daos. The real headache was the unusual spatial pressure. Space wasn't linear inside the chasm, and there was a powerful force trying to twist him like a rope. Nothing he did seemed to reduce the painful pull, leaving him with nothing to rely on except his body's basic durability.

Not even his Soul Sense was spared, and a painful backlash made Zac cough up blood inside his helmet. His Mental Energy had been dragged beyond its breaking point when it expanded from his body. He'd effectively been blinded, and direction couldn't be trusted any more than inside the Void.

Should he just leave and regroup? [Apex Jungle] should still be able to reach outside, and using Void Energy should let him teleport out before the domain was ripped apart.

It was almost like the universe could hear his thoughts. The beacon's signal returned just as Zac considered retreat, and he furiously channeled [Skystriker] to force his way further into the storm. The turbulence worsened, putting increasing pressure on [Ossuary Bulwark]. Meanwhile, the Killing Intent dragged into the chasm was growing increasingly concentrated, approaching the levels where it gained a will.

The good news was that the signal gradually grew stronger, confirming Zac successfully navigated the chasm while giving him a better sense of direction. Purpose burned as he forcibly activated his movement skill over and over until a warning call echoed in his mind. It came from his gear rather than danger sense, cautioning that the beastcrafted armor was approaching a point beyond its self-recovery capabilities.

Zac still forged ahead, replacing bone armor with the suppressive force of his bloodline. He condensed [Void Zone] to only reach a hand beyond his body to conserve energy and slightly strengthen the nullification field. It was still woefully incapable of dealing with the onslaught, but that didn't change Zac's conviction. He pressed on, constantly channeling [Surging Rebirth] with Kill Energy.

It wasn't often that Eoz's parting words resonated with him as much as it did today. Zac's ancestor had found purpose through his descendants, and through purpose came strength. Zac felt that same strength as he fought to reach his disciple.

Purpose and iron will brought Zac further than he'd reach on his own, but his Draugr Nodes weren't without a limit. He was eventually forced to swap out [Void Zone] with the absolute defense of a D-grade Defensive Talisman. It gave him a breather against the chaotic energies, but the Killing Intent had already reached critical mass. Murderous intent so dense it gained physical form and malignant will crashed into the barrier. Some of it seeped through, which finally stirred the slumbering [Void Heart] to action.

It was a small comfort but painfully inadequate to turn the situation around. A pang of danger provided a last-minute warning before a wraithlike warrior stepped out of the rampaging winds, slashing at Zac with overly long fingers. The attack tore through the exhausted talisman, but a golden domain rose to meet the attack. [Empyrean Aegis] managed to block the ambush at the cost of three pillars, but more vengeful ghosts were already forming around him.

The situation was unsustainable.

Zac had no choice but to finally activate his Hail Mary. Large amounts of Void Energy were spent to conjure a vast jungle within the storm. Zac stretched the skill as far as he could, even if that meant its collapse would come sooner. Hundreds of trees were shredded the second they appeared. Zac forcibly regrew them, unheeding of the strain it put the skill fractal under.

The ghosts were barely affected by the domain, and a swipe destroyed the remaining pillars of Zac's defensive skill. He used the attack's momentum to fly into the closest tree of his rapidly crumbling domain. Zac had no frame of reference as to where the tree he teleported to was located. He only knew the emergency beacon was loudest here.

The jungle had already been ripped apart by wraiths and spatial distortion when Zac emerged. The tree behind him was the last of its kind, bravely holding on until it finished its mission. The winds were much calmer where he appeared, but it was replaced by something even worse.

He'd entered a world of overwhelming Killing Intent, filled with jagged screams and discordant memories. He'd fallen into a sea of blood which broke down his body and corroded his sanity. Yet the rescue beacon was like a lighthouse's lantern, urging his body forward. Suddenly, he felt his hands and knees touch solid ground, but it barely registered over the war raging in his mind.

Too much intent had flooded his body. Dozens of red streaks had formed, and [Void Heart] was utterly incapable of containing them. It slowly nibbled away at the energy, but Zac knew he'd go mad before it was done unless something changed. He tried to enter a Void State to combat the roaring madness, only to find his sanctuary repeatedly encroached and destroyed.

He unsteadily got to his feet, stepping forward while forming a familiar mudra. One position followed the next as Zac let muscle memory lead him through the first layer of the [Void Vajra Sublimation]. The familiar movements and their conditioned effect helped Zac take better control of his state of mind.

The crumbling Void eventually stabilized, becoming a stone that resisted the river. The only thing he accepted into his Void was the stable call of Emily's beacon, which represented his self and his purpose. Everything else was held at bay.

Zac had no idea how long it took before the Killing Intent was exhausted and the fiendish energy consumed. He slumped onto the ground, his body once more a bloody mess. The remaining Kill Energy flooded [Surging Rebirth], rapidly closing his lacerations.

It was only now he'd gotten a look at his surroundings. Zac knew he'd passed the chasm, but he hadn't expected to reach the tower interiors directly from the storm. However, there was no other explanation for the densely engraved walls of the wide hallway he found himself in. The details and materials differed from the buildings outside, and he only needed to turn around to confirm his location.

The hallway abruptly ended just ten meters behind him, giving a spectacular view of the miniature world. The buildings were so far below him they looked like small toy blocks. He hadn't just entered the tower; he had already reached one of the upper sections damaged by the immense sword scar. There was no hint of Killing Intent around him, but Zac knew that taking a few steps toward the opening would put him right back in that torture chamber.

Thankfully, Emily's beacon wasn't asking anything of the sort. Its signal was still weak but significantly stronger than inside the hurricane. It clearly indicated for him to go up and further into the tower. Which coincidentally was the same direction his treasure sense urged him to go. Far more fate was gathered in the upper reaches than the rest of the tower combined.

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Had his luck finally rubbed off on his disciple, sending her right past the finish line to claim the prize?

He tried to send her a message without any luck. Perhaps she wasn't in a state to answer. More likely, the tower blocked unauthorized means of communication. Zac took a shuddering breath as the tracker suddenly began moving. She was neither getting closer nor further away. Emily was moving back and forth in a space of roughly fifty meters.

She was alive, and she was trying to communicate through the signal. Zac's heart flooded with relief even greater than after surviving the passage. The signal was bidirectional, so she should have sensed his arrival. Was Emily saying she was okay by moving back and forth? Or that she's trapped? There was only one way to find out.

Zac ignored his body's protests as he moved further into the hallway. He didn't give the dozens of identical doorways a single glance as he passed them by, though his Soul Sense ensured he didn't miss a single detail. It quickly became apparent the fortress's damage wasn't limited to the immediate vicinity of the sword scar.

Most inscriptions lacked Cosmic Energy even further inside. Meanwhile, others were so overloaded they had become ticking time bombs, where cracked walls and scorched hallways impressed just how much force they were talking about.

And while Zac couldn't sense any spatial instability right now, it clearly hadn't always been so stable. Wherever he looked, there were the small, clean incisions of spatial tears. Only a few contained lingering traces of Spatial Energy, though. The damage was recent but not ongoing. Had the interiors stabilized when the tower began spinning?

Zac's Soul Sense couldn't penetrate the walls or the doors he passed, but the damage provided access and allowed Zac to confirm he'd been deposited into something like a sealed cultivation corridor. He passed a door every ten meters, and the only thing on the other side were small cubic rooms covered in odd arrays Zac didn't recognize. Odd in the sense they seemed designed to extract energy rather than deposit it.

It was curious, but Zac wasn't in the mood to solve the mystery or waste his token on opening one of the intact chambers to confirm. He soon reached the hallway's end, finding himself before a much sturdier door. Zac had already mentally prepared himself to use more of the token's energy to reach Emily, but a few jarring details made him stop ten meters away from the door.

First of all, the door exuded a palpable sense of danger. Its design differed greatly from those outside. It was covered in complex patterns that made it resemble a piece of art. Zac could tell it was made from Peak D-grade materials, at the least, and the energy coursing through it indicated it was being actively guarded or reinforced by arrays. There was also a control rune to the side, indicating it wasn't automated like the doors outside.

None of that was enough to give Zac pause. The two corpses slumped on the ground, however, were. They were Alliance Hegemons by their appearance. They were wounded, but not to the point it could explain their deaths. There was simply no way they'd entered the same way as he. Like Emily, they must have been deposited right inside the tower.

Were they early arrivals from when the spatial instability still reigned, or was it possible for pathways to form inside the tower despite its additional protections? It was likely the latter based on a few clues.

Zac had hoped Emily would be the exception to the rule because of their unorthodox method of entering the fortress, but Zac feared it might not be the case. Perhaps there were already hundreds of people fighting for the opportunities within. Or would any new arrival end up trapped like Emily and the two men before him?

The Hegemons must have realized the dangers of leaving through sword scar and opted to break through the door. Zac could sense lingering energy on three sections of the doorframe, and there were piles of dust right beneath the spots—array breakers, most likely, and not used more than a couple of hours ago.

The result was evident. The door remained closed while the Hegemons were deader than dead. The bodies completely lacked any spirituality or energy, like an invisible pulse had annihilated their souls and dispersed all energy within their cores.

Zac inched closer while monitoring the door, ready to flash away at the slightest sign of danger. He grabbed the closest hand to access the Hegemon's Spatial Ring, only for the hand to crumble like dry wood. The door's defenses were no joke to kill a D-grade cultivator so utterly.

The Spatial Ring wasn't in much better shape. It didn't crumble to Zac's touch, but cracks began to spread when he infused some energy. There was no time to worry about seals or traps. Zac urgently scanned its contents for clues and treasures while the subspace crumbled, knowing he could only extract one or two items before the whole thing crumbled. There was a little bit of everything, from manuals to crystals and treasures.

All normal things you'd find on any Hegemon, yet Zac knew something was off.

Zac had long since lost count of how many Cosmos Sacks and Spatial Rings he'd looted since the integration. He'd seen everything from mountains of treasures to such meager reserves it made Zac wonder whether his opponent had even been a cultivator. Some spatial treasures were all business, containing only the items needed for a mission or their ongoing cultivation. Others carried their entire lives on their fingers.

Some held the tools of hobbies or secondary trades. Others, thousands of worthless trinkets and mementos. He'd found one with tens of thousands of leaves, none from Spiritual Plants, yet all carefully organized. Another, thousands of self-drawn portraits. All different, but they had one thing in common. They told a story. A Spatial Ring was a window into its owner's psyche, exposing their background and pursuits.

And the story Zac was seeing rang false.

Zac didn't know why he felt that way since nothing stood out. It simply felt too intentional and synthetic. Zac chose to follow his hunch since there wasn't anything valuable in the ring anyway, so he extracted the item that gave him the strongest sense of wrongness: a wooden wardrobe holding five sets of casual robes.

The wooden armoire was only made from F-grade materials and crumbled from the unstable extraction. Zac flashed away as a gust of energy spewed a pile of items. It wasn't the robes, though, but a slew of items he hadn't noticed before.

The wardrobe actually held a second subspace, something Zac didn't even think was possible. It couldn't have been larger than a bucket, but it was still an incredible accomplishment. Could it have used a different storage method than the Dao of Space? Zac hadn't heard of anything like that before.

But if there were Cosmic Vessels based on various Daos, why not storage devices? Zac would be lying if he said he wasn't jealous. Who wouldn't want a hidden compartment for their most important treasures and secrets in case their Spatial Ring was searched?

It wasn't hard to guess why this seemingly average Hegemon had needed such an extravagant hiding spot. The items that spilled forth were wholly unfamiliar, yet they brought back memories of Kenzie's workshop and the laboratories inside the research base. The corpses were Technocrats.

Zac swore as he looked at the pile of gadgets, knowing his fears had come true. The technocrats were really a step ahead of the competition. It increasingly looked like they were his greatest adversary rather than the cultists. But so what? Emily was waiting for him, and some Technocrats wouldn't change anything. He'd cut them all down, no matter how many got in his way.

The door shared his antipathy, and Zac urgently created even more distance as the arrays on the doorframe lit up. A powerful pulse shook the corridor, and Zac was forced to activate [Void Zone] when a nearby rune broke and added to the chaos. The chaos only worsened, so Zac squeezed into one of the side chambers through a broken door and barricaded the gap with a block of Spiritual Metal.

The commotion only abated after thirty seconds. Zac ate another set of Healing Pills as he returned to the doorway, even if the effect was limited. He'd been overindulging the past hours, and the effect would only get worse until his body had stabilized and flushed out all the medicinal dregs.

He should've known a Limitless Empire War Fortress would be installed with defenses against the Dao of Technology. The question was, would it be able to sense the stain of technology on his body? After all, he was technically a descendant of the Kayar-Elu, one of the original Selvari Clans chosen by the Technocrat Codex.

Wouldn't he be considered enemy number one? Would the whole tower go berserk if it recognized his bloodline?

Zac looked down at the [Nine Courts Token] with hesitation. He hadn't been fully confident if it'd work inside after the token failed to prevent the danger of being exposed to the tower. Now, there were suddenly more variables at play. No, it shouldn't be like that. He wasn't a real Kayar-Elu, and every part of him was within Heaven's purview by design. He was designed to trick even the System, so a C-grade fortress shouldn't be a problem.

The pile of Technocrat tools had been reduced to dust, as were the corpses. Zac sifted through the piles, but there was nothing to salvage. Besides, would he even dare activate a Technocrat computer if he found one? He was extremely curious why a bunch of Technocrats were so interested in a dilapidated fortress, but he lacked the implants and skills to look for answers.

Zac looked at the control array for a few seconds before moving the token closer. The door felt like an agitated beast about to lash out again, with its energy precariously fluctuating. His heart thumped when he put the token right against the sigil. His worries only increased when energy surged toward the gate from the surrounding walls.

Finally, he couldn't take it any longer. He disappeared, instantly moving halfway across the corridor with [Skystriker]. However, no soul-destroying pulses or lethal lights pursued him. The door slowly opened, though it stopped halfway when its arrays failed. Zac stepped forward, his axe already in hand.

The gates were open and destiny was calling.

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