Defiance of the Fall

“This is a bad idea,” Ogras muttered as he slunk out of Zac’s grip, though he still kept pace. “You can’t trust that fool of a Realm Spirit to know what it’s doing.”

An ominous ripple spread through the spatial beam, as if cursed by the demon’s unlucky words. Zac’s eyes widened in alarm, and he activated his movement skill, but he frantically canceled it when his mind screamed of mortal danger. It was just in time as well, as his contraction of space had created small fissures in front of him.

“What the-” Ogras groaned as he emerged bloody from a puff of shadows, clearly having encountered a similar phenomenon.

There was no time to answer as Zac desperately scrambled out of the way. He narrowly avoided getting split in two thanks to Vivi’s vines, but he still felt a cold sensation as the spatial tear nicked him. From there, the errant burst of energy continued past them as it carved an enormous crevasse into the ground.

Another one had streaked through the enemy lines, instantly killing a set of unlucky souls while cutting apart one of the siege towers.

“How can space be this brittle?” Vai exclaimed with a pale expression.

“Can’t you feel it?” Ogras grunted as he pointed at the dissipating tear. “It’s not pure.”

Zac’s brows furrowed as he sensed what the demon was getting at. There really was a hint of the Lost Plane’s madness inside that spatial tear, though it was still barely discernible.

“This realm might really be crumbling,” Vai cried.

No matter how weak the sign was, it wasn’t good news. They hadn’t seen the situation improve over the past week, but neither had it deteriorated. To see hints of the Lost Plane this far from his pillar, especially in conjunction with how brittle space was, proved the situation might be even worse than they’d feared.

“We’ll worry about that later,” Zac said, speaking to himself as much as the others. “We need to move – they’ve spotted us.”

“Into that deathtrap?” Ogras said with a raised brow.

“It’ll be fine,” Zac grunted as he kept running toward the incoming chaos, even if he wasn’t without misgivings.

It wasn’t just foolhardiness and blind faith that propelled him forward, even if the madness inside the tears had been an unwelcome surprise. Thanks to [Rapturous Divide] and his study of the theories in the Book of Duality, Zac had a pretty good idea of what Billy or the Realm Spirit were planning. He had noticed it right away; the core of the incoming shockwave was hollow and expanding.

As expected, the corridor of destruction soon collapsed, creating two spatial storms that blocked out the invaders while a third covered the sky. Between the storms, a 100-meter-wide pathway mostly free of spatial turbulence appeared, leading all the way to the walled fort in the distance. It was a solid idea, and it would have been almost perfect if not for space turning so brittle.

There was no way he’d dare use his movement skill in this kind of environment after his previous close encounter; he might accidentally step into the Void if he did that. Or perhaps even the Lost Plane. Even using too powerful attacks was risky in such an environment, though that was as much a strength as a weakness since that restrained the enemies as well. Most importantly, the spatial beam had opened a path for them while keeping the invaders at bay.

Or at least most of them.

Zac knew first-hand how dangerous those kinds of spatial storms were to traverse, but it wasn’t impossible. A few of the invaders were already making their way through under the urgings of their superiors. A few were even thrown inside when they refused to move. However, most were led by Hegemons, who used brute force to carve a path.

Dozens learned the same lesson they had, and Zac even saw a Hegemon get swallowed by a spatial tear when he tried to teleport through the storm. Meanwhile, hundreds of warriors were rushing toward Zac, wanting to intercept their approach or use their entrance.

“I’ll take the left,” the demon said as dark clouds made from shadows started to spread while Zac tried conjuring a fractal blade.

Space held together even under the pressure of [Nature’s Edge] empowered by two of his Dao Branches, but Zac could feel it wouldn’t be able to endure much more punishment than that. Still, that was all Zac needed as he unleashed a constant stream of fractal leaves toward the right.

The closest warriors, who previously made up the army’s rear, initially tried to block out Zac’s attacks with various defensive skills. That only resulted in a scene of utter carnage as blades empowered by two Dao Branches and a monstrous amount of strength cut through everything in their path.

The situation wasn’t as lopsided on the other side, even if Ogras used all kinds of tools to impede the incoming tide of warriors. Hidden spears rose from the shadows, illusions made warriors turn on their allies, and an obscuring haze led people straight into the spatial storms. It formed a dangerous web that delayed their enemies long enough for Zac and his two companions to enter the pathway. In their wake, Ogras released his illusory shroud, which would give the three a head start for the final stretch.

“Can you destabilize the storms even further?” Zac asked of Vai, who nodded after some hesitation.

The researcher started releasing spatial ripples from her vine seat, which entered the churning storms to their sides. The swells were instilled with Vai’s Spacial Dao Branch, and the storms picked up ferocity everywhere they passed. Warriors who were narrowly hanging on as they made their way through suddenly found themselves overwhelmed by a barrage of spatial tears and were ripped to shreds.

She also sent some ripples toward their rear, opening up large jagged scars in their wake. She even managed to connect the two storms, though the barrier was nowhere near as thick as the ones to their sides. Still, having a Spatial Cultivator in this proved extremely useful, and she singlehandedly averted more than five ambushes as they ran toward the fort.

But soon enough, a whole squad of warriors emerged from the storm, led by a defensive Hegemon who had simply blocked out the innumerable Spatial Tears. The group was a bit bloodied and battered, but their auras were still solid as they formed an iron wall between Zac’s group and the wall in the distance.

However, just as they formed their defensive perimeter, a deep rumble echoed through the area as a golden mountain rose from the ground right at their feet. The Hegemon slammed down on it with an enormous engraved pillar he was carrying around, and it formed some sort of seal on the ground.

The seal groaned in protest when the golden mountain peak slammed into it, but it narrowly withstood the unrelenting push from below. However, the energy the Hegemon unleashed was just too powerful, and spatial tears sprung up all around the invaders. Soon enough, one struck the Hegemon in his left arm, and Ogras used the opportunity to activate a familiar strike.

Two lances of condensed shadows appeared, one behind and one in front of the Hegemon, who suddenly found himself under attack from every direction. He wasn’t the only one in trouble, though, as the activation had created a series of Spatial Tears all around Zac and the others. Zac knew this would happen, and he already had ample experience dodging spatial tears since his time in the Research Base.

Zac pushed through the spatial turbulence just in time to see one of the shadow lances strike the Hegemon right in his heart. It wasn’t actually enough to kill the man since some sort of plate hidden beneath his robes blocked the strike, but the force pushed him right into a spatial tear that tore up his back.

Together, it was enough to destabilize the defensive seal, and the golden mountain below pushed through with redoubled ferocity. It contained an immense weight, and some of the E-grade warriors the Hegemon had brought were crushed from the pressure alone. Others managed to avoid the mayhem, but they were forced back into the Spatial Storm.

By that point, Zac and Ogras were already upon the stragglers, and the two finished off the Hegemon with a blitz assault of ferocious swings before they rounded the mountain. Even then, the three were covered in wounds since the mountain had conjured too many tears to perfectly avoid them all.

After passing the mountain, they had already crossed two-thirds of the corridor, and Zac smiled as he saw the familiar form standing at the mouth of the barrier like a stalwart tower. Billy looked almost exactly like before, except his hair had turned golden just like it did in his transformed state. If Zac had to guess, it meant Billy had properly awakened his bloodline already.

There was also a powerful sense of oppression emanating from his fleshy body, and it felt like a mountain was blocking the gated entrance rather than a person. Just a bloodline wasn’t enough to give off such a brutal aura, and neither was stacking strength. The titan must have not only awakened his Titanic heritage but also cultivated some sort of body tempering method to the limits of the E-grade.

Zac didn’t want the giant to accidentally thwonk him or Vai as well, so his face started to morph back into its original form as they closed in on the opening in the spatial barrier. A wide smile immediately spread across Billy’s when he saw Zac’s appearance.

“Haha! Super Brother Man has finally found Billy! And you even found stupid Horny Guy!” a booming laugh echoed through the area.

Zac was about to answer, but two more Hegemons suddenly appeared to bar their path. However, they didn’t look too happy about the situation. They knew which way the wind blew, being pincered between an unmovable Billy and Zac who was already bearing down on them like a runaway train.

The first of the two grit his teeth as he pointed at Zac, prompting a hundred bloody suns to appear above his head. Zac felt a sense of danger from them, but one didn’t need his level of Luck to realize they were trouble. Space crackled around the glowing orbs, and the whole pathway was rapidly deteriorating.

“Be prepared in case my barrier fails,” Zac said as a golden laurel appeared on his head.

Three pillars rose from the ground behind him, and the three people in his group were each enclosed by one barrier. It was one of the features of the skill reaching Middle Proficiency. With three pillars rather than two, his defensive skill would either turn more durable, or he could protect a third person.

The activation was just in time as a rain of deadly rays descended on their position. Each sanguine sun was like a turret that released one beam after another, but the suns were also falling toward them like a manufactured meteor shower, each orb creating trailing spatial tears in their wake.

Zac frowned at the incoming mayhem, hesitant whether he would have to unleash one of his more powerful attacks. But space was already at a breaking point from those orbs. What would happen if he added [Arcadia’s Judgement] to the mix? At the same time, he wasn’t confident his skill could block both the spatial tears and the Hegemon’s skill.

An angry roar broke the status quo as Billy swung his club. Weirdly enough, it crashed into empty space like it was a solid, and huge cracks spread toward the Hegemons. Amazingly, not a single Spatial Tear moved in Billy’s direction – they were all heading outward. Had Billy gained insights into the Dao of Space, or was the Dimensional Seed Helping him?

Either way, it forced the second Hegemon’s hand. He had stood guard against Billy, but made a different choice from his companion – he fled instead of taking on the giant’s attack. He turned into a stream of blood that cut through the spatial chaos, the skill looking a lot like the ones the scouts in the mountain range used.

Something like that was a risky gambit, but he actually made it to the outer edges of the spatial storm before the skill collapsed, and he emerged as a bloody mess. He was covered in scars and lost one leg, but he was alive. That left a shocked and enraged Hegemon behind, who suddenly faced the incoming spatial tears from behind.

The Hegemon turned back to block by unleashing a bloody storm, but the brief bout of inattention cost him dearly. Ogras had appeared out of nowhere from the man’s shadow, and his spear pierced straight into the man’s bicep. It was far from a lethal wound, but that didn’t mean that Ogras had missed.

Instead of targeting a lethal point that might be protected like before, Ogras had actually targeted the skill fractal for the skill in the sky. The suns shuddered before they started to lose their cohesiveness, with only the Hegemon’s Dao keeping the skill together. With the skill broken, Zac no longer felt any need to activate one of his finishers.

The remaining efficacy of [Empyrean Aegis] would be enough to deal with the fallout, so Zac threw Vai to Ogras, who had appeared back by their side with a new set of wounds. As expected, flashing over like that was pretty dangerous, but sometimes you had to take a risk. The ground beneath Zac’s feet cracked as he pushed forward with all his might, propelling himself right through the storm of spatial tears and collapsing suns.

A fractal leaf no larger than a meter and a half swung down, its form shrouded by two extremely condensed clouds in black and gold. The Hegemon condensed another barrier, but it was futile in front of a condensed [Rapturous Divide] empowered by Zac’s Dao and a collapsing spacetime.

A colossal scar in space cut straight through the man before it continued into the spatial storms, even swallowing the two apparitions of the Abyss and Arcadia. It even reached the army outside, and Zac looked at the chaotic scene with wide eyes as dozens of energy streams entered his body. Thank god he had angled the strike away from the fort.

With the Hegemon dead, the final obstacle between himself and Billy was gone. The giant was excitedly waving his club like he hadn’t just brutalized two Hegemons and scared off another. Space was actively collapsing by that point, but they were right at the home stretch.

Ogras caught up with Vai slung over his shoulder, and the three passed through the barrier a few seconds later. The spatial bubble closed right behind them, cutting off the spatial tears that looked ready to swallow all around them. The grating sound of the tearing space and pained cries of the warriors caught in the storm were cut off as well, leaving only their panting breaths and Billy’s booming laugh.

“Haha, did you like Billy’s mountain?” the giant grinned as he excitedly swung his nasty club like it was made out of foam.

“It was very cool,” Zac grinned, relieved to see that space was perfectly stable inside the barrier. “It’s nice to finally see you again.”

“Gemmy helped too!” the childish voice from before exclaimed as a shimmering crystal flew out from one of Billy’s pockets. “Billy says you can help bash the bad guys and cure Gemmy?”

“Are… you the Dimensional Seed?” Zac said as he looked at the floating gem curiously.

“Gemmy is Gemmy,” the gem hummed. “You are stupid. But why do you smell familiar?”

“Uh,” Zac hesitated. “We met once when you were younger. We helped each other out to escape from some bad guys.”

“Ah! Gemmy remembers! Gemmy was inside you!” the floating gem giggled, which drew odd looks from Ogras and Vai. “Your body is weird. Hungry. Hungry Guy.”

“Well, uh,” Zac coughed.

“Ah, Gemmy is tired. Going to take a nap in the fire,” the gem continued before it flew off toward the innards of the fort, and Zac saw that Vai was just as confused as he felt.

“Like I never left,” Ogras sighed.

“Finally, friends have come to help. Welcome to Kingdom of Billy!” Billy excitedly exclaimed as he followed the Dimensional Seed.

“So, are we just going to pretend the army outside isn’t there? Or that space isn’t apparently on the verge of collapse?” Ogras muttered as they walked through the thick wall.

“Billy hasn’t forgotten how you tricked the Smallboys and stole Dao Stones, Horny Guy,” Billy snorted. “And Billy has a plan to fix everything.”

“You have a plan?” Ogras nodded as they emerged on the other side. “I’d had hoped to die between the bosoms of two succubae, but I guess this place will have to do.”

“Let’s just list-” Zac said, but he was interrupted by a series of hurried steps and a loud exclamation.

“Vai?! Is that you?!”

Zac looked over with confusion as he vaguely recognized the voice, and his brows rose when he saw not one but two familiar faces run toward them.