Defiance of the Fall

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 .