Defiance of the Fall

The extinguishing force of [Void Mountain] poured through Zac's arms and entered the massive chalice. A tremendous rebound answered, and Zac grunted with pain when his arms broke in multiple locations. The only thing he got for almost crippling himself was three runes briefly fading before they regained their glory by using an inch of the liquified faith. There was simply no way it would work.

Streams of Creation Energy mended Zac's bones, and he switched to his backup plan. A step took him into the heart of the sword domain, and he noted it had expanded by over a meter since before. If it kept going like that, it would soon cover the whole sanctum. The domain put [Empyrean Aegis] under immense pressure. Zac reactivated his Bloodline Talent, this time targeting the blade instead. It proved far more resilient than any statue, but it was within his tolerance.

Each second felt like an eternity. The wheel behind him creaked and groaned as it was forced to withstand the combined assault of the Killing Array and Sword Domain. Zac kept regrowing trees to carry some of the load, but most were torn apart before they could fully emerge. Meanwhile, Zac's danger sense grew increasingly urgent.

Just as the warning bells reached a crescendo, the wheel turned 180 degrees. The etching on the hub distorted in a disorienting flutter before settling on a completely new motif. A powerful pulse of gold and Void burst from his defensive skill, spreading through the whole crypt. Most of the damage to the wheel had been mended, and the golden barrier shifted to gain a steely hue.

The Faith Energy grew turbid wherever the pulse passed, and the runes on the guardian weapons dimmed. The chalice lost a large amount of Faith Energy and was forced to restart its absorption array, and the devastating attack the scepter was about to launch was fully canceled. The same was true for the sword, giving Zac a much-needed window to continue wearing it down.

The pulse was an intentional change when upgrading [Empyrean Aegis]. The restrictive domain of the old skill was also good, and it had allowed him to turn the tables more than once. However, he'd found the initial surprise when activating the skill was the most useful part, and that most experienced cultivators quickly adapted to the domain.

Therefore, Zac chose to replace the continuous restriction with a sudden pulse packed with greater power. He'd also incorporated his Evolutionary Path into the skill, where turning the wheel recovered much of the sustained damage in a faux-rebirth. Doing so also shifted the defensive properties, making it harder for the enemy to discover a weakness.

Seconds passed until the threat level returned to unbearable levels, at which point the wheel turned again and threw the weapons back to square one. Even a prepared cultivator would have had a hard time defending against the pulse with its randomized energy signature.

Two pulses was the skill's current limit, but it was enough. The sword shattered before it got the chance to unleash a real attack or grow its domain beyond the intersection. The weapon seemed intent on dragging Zac with it to hell, and its destruction unleashed a tremendous blade storm fueled by its stockpiled spirituality and faith. It was like dozens of sword domains layered at once, more than enough to tear Zac apart a few times over.

A vine tugged, and Zac was dragged into a nearby tree before the fallout could consume him. He appeared on the far end of the hall, his danger sense still blaring. Layers and layers of empowered trees were reduced into splinters, utterly incapable of stopping the shockwave. Zac's armor transformed, and the responding axelights erupted in large explosions that pushed back against the sword tide.

The contained space made the mayhem even more appalling, yet Zac fanned the flames by adding [Evolutionary Edge] on top. Together with [Conformation of Supremacy]'s explosions, the attacks were like hyenas nibbling at an elephant. Their strength couldn't be compared to the guardian's revenge, but the vast quantity did help exhaust parts of the incoming shockwave.

Having almost spent all his runes, Zac swapped back to his Ent Elder form and threw out a Life-attuned Defensive Talisman. A wall of thorns filled up the hallway, blocking Zac's vision. Haro emerged from the World Ring, sacrificing a mile's worth of vines to lessen Zac's load. The defensive blockade was torn apart, and the sword tide crashed into [Empyrean Aegis]'s golden barrier.

The five spokes on the empyrean wheel snapped in rapid succession until the skill collapsed. Having been forced to use both resets to interrupt attacks meant he couldn't reset the skill to prolong its defenses. Still, only a shadow of the original tsunami remained by that point, and even that was weakened by [Void Zone]'s erosion. It was barely enough.

Pieces of [Ossuary Bulkwark] fell like rain, and deep lacerations were carved across Zac's body. Zac grimaced, but rest wasn't an option. He dove into the wake of the shockwave, worsening his wounds even further. His previous location was torn apart by another golden crystal just a second later.

Zac appeared close to the intersection and crammed a handful of healing pills into his mouth. He branded the nearby statues before moving out again. He ignored the scepter, even when it began spitting out a large number of smaller crystals that followed him like heat-seeking missiles. He had no choice. Destroying the sword had cost him too much Void Energy and time.

Since he couldn't deal with the chalice, he needed to escape before it filled up and came alive. The good news was that the candles went out as statues crumbled. And with the sword gone, he only needed to avoid the scepter's attacks while alternating between picking up blessings and destroying statues. It was getting harder as the room filled up with floating mines.

Eventually, Zac didn't have time to split his attention on the blessings. A few of them had also been rejected by [Void Mountain], so he simply let them accumulate in his chest to investigate later. Sixty, Eighty, and finally one hundred statues crumbled. Zac was right at the end, but his face was pallid, and his eyes were dark as he shattered another statue and snatched its blessing.

He couldn't even see the sanctum's other end because of the large number of bombs. He'd tried to keep their numbers down, but they were intangible balls of faith. Haro passed right through them without triggering an eruption, and his skills were equally useless. Only one thing worked. Zac's face remained unmoving as he cut off strips of muscle from his thigh and threw them at bombs blocking his path.

Each crystal unleashed a contained blast upon sensing Zac's aura in his tissue. He was literally paying a pound of flesh to absolve his sins. Zac flashed forward the moment the path was clear, already collecting more grisly tributes as he dismantled the next saint. It took almost two seconds, forcing him to keep throwing out more flesh to stop the approaching crystals.

He'd already reached the bottom of the barrel for his Void Energy, and [Void Mountain]'s aura was unstable from overuse—something infusing blessings couldn't resolve. He'd long since been forced to turn off [Void Zone] to continue his work. Thankfully, the Killing Array was already so weakened it didn't pose much of a problem. He was doing more damage to himself than the arrays were.

Again and again, Zac dug deeper when his Void reserves were tapped out, and the whole sanctum floor was painted red by his sacrifice. Eventually, there was only a single saint left to deal with. Eleani Ano. It wasn't just because she stood next to the scepter he'd saved her for last. She was the first saint he'd encountered, and seeing her end had left the strongest mark. He'd subconsciously picked other statues when she stood nearby.

Now, there was no one else to pick, and he was out of Void Energy. It was nothing short of a miracle he managed to extract enough energy to activate [Void Mountain] for the past three statues. But he had nothing left to give, no matter how hard he squeezed. Zac's vision swam, and he found himself losing balance from the strain, forcing him to grab onto the statue with a bloody hand missing multiple fingers.

His mind screamed with danger, but his body no longer listened. Zac tried to rouse himself one last time, to try something, at least. He had to lean against the saint for support as the crystals drew closer, and he went with the only thing with a chance of breaking the statue. Chaos.

Streams of Oblivion and Creation were dredged from the depths and moved toward his shoulders. However, a rumble and something heavy touching his head stopped his attempt to activate the last-ditch skill he hadn't dared use since the Void Star. Zac's drifting consciousness was shaken wide awake, and his eyes widened when he saw the statue look down at him with a gentle smile. The thing touching his head was the statue's hand.

'Flame…'

The weak, distant whisper seemed to come from the past. The statue crumbled, the last candle went out, and the guardian weapons dimmed. Zac exhaled as the last blessing entered his chest, bringing with it a spiritual surge that had been absent from the blessings he stole. It swept through his body, giving him the strength to keep going a bit longer.

It was at that moment Zac realized the trial wasn't fading like the previous four. The catacombs rumbled, and Zac quickly swallowed another set of soldier pills as he warily looked around. The threat came from below this time. The floor gave way, exposing a bottomless darkness. It was like an enormous sinkhole had formed beneath the cathedral, swallowing it whole.

Bricks and pieces of marble fell like rain around Zac as he plunged into the trial's hidden underbelly. He tried to control his descent, but the environment overruled his control. Then, his whole body disappeared, reducing him to a discarnate consciousness caught in a storm.

The waters collected by the almost full chalice spilled out, forming rivers of faith that snaked through the hurricane of rubble. Zac looked on with confusion and shock as the sanctum's falling pieces rearranged themselves into the statues he'd destroyed. Most were only half-formed and partly made of floor tiles and pieces of wall, and liquified Faith Energy filled in the blanks.

The saints looked broken and worn down. And yet, they felt more alive than the statues he'd faced moments ago. There was true consciousness in the gazes that lasted a second or two before the statues were returned to the storm. The wrath and Killing Intent were gone. Replacing them were conviction and anticipation.

The rain of rubble was gradually thinning out, with piece after piece being swallowed by darkness. Soon, there was just Zac, who kept scanning the surroundings for threats. His Danger Sense had calmed down, but that didn't make him feel much better. Had his desperate gambit dismantled the whole trial, forcing the environment to unravel like a video game bug? Or was it responding in kind, throwing him into the Void after Zac used the Void to destroy it?

Finally, there was a spark of light in the distance. Zac warily watched it grow until it took up most of his vision. He relaxed after confirming it wasn't a blast of faith coming to do him in, but his guard soon went up when he sensed another familiar aura—the Heavens, the current one and not a vision from the pre-System era. Zac desperately tried to get away, but he was pushed into the grand tapestry all the same.

Zac didn't dare so much as think, afraid he'd draw another tribulation on himself. Thankfully, he passed through without causing so much as a ripple. The light faded and was replaced by dark oceans made from incomprehensible patterns. It was the Four Laws, engulfed by boundless radiance before Zac had a chance to derive anything.

The Imperial Fate he faced in the Tribulation Throne was back with a vengeance. It exuded a boundless conviction that could overturn fate and usher in a new era. A common thread, a common goal. A prime undertaking made possible by the grace of the Emperor.

This time, there was no Cosmic Destiny to curtail its expansion. The boundless ocean of communal belief covered all reality, and Zac's soul groaned from being forced to take in just a sliver of its scope. It was like he once more was facing the silent, enduring power of the incomprehensibly large Void Mountain.

A flickering aura different from the rest gave Zac something to focus on, which helped alleviate the pressure. It was the closest anomaly of many, and Zac vaguely sensed more than ten far in the distance. It soon became apparent he was moving, or rather being pulled, right toward the congregation of undying will.

The particular aura congealed into a familiar rune. It was sigil for the Order of the Empyrean Chalice. The brand was like an array flag, helping sustain and stabilize the fading faith of a long-gone era. Like the Imperial Fate, the rune showed signs of age. It wouldn't fail today or tomorrow, but it couldn't overcome the Law of Impermanence. Zac shot right into the sigil's center, expecting the vision to end there. It didn't.

Zac passed through the shimmering curtain, coming face to face with an endless expanse of nothingness—utter, absolute nothingness. It was the same horrifying void as when his inspiration took him to the Void Mountain. Zac felt his very being erode from being exposed to the boundless beyond. Thankfully, the suffering didn't last long before something pulled him back.

In the heart of the order's sigil was an unadorned chalice filled with the waters of destiny. A drop fell into the cup, and the gentle sloshing conveyed a universal yearning. It stemmed from the earliest eddies of the Grand Kalpa and stretched to the unknowable haze of a distant future. Zac could vaguely sense the marks of the exalted existences that had contributed to the cup.

'In accordance with the Pact of the Flame, we name you the Terminal Son of the Empyrean Chalice.'

The vision faded. Zac was back in his own body, his wounds already healed. He stood atop a platform in the middle of a round church, showered in multifarious light from glazed windows. Surrounding him were the five steles of the Pilgrimages of the Empyrean Chalice and an exit leading to the Halls of Service. Lofty faith seeped out of every corner of the building, and the ambient energy was no less than in the Pilgrimage of Faith.

The swirl of faith wasn't threatening. Instead, it was almost protective, welcoming. The sense of safety didn't do much to calm his nerves. The Pilgrimage of Faith had given him too many shocks, from narrowly escaping death to the shocking vision that followed.

"Feeding the flame," Zac muttered as he turned to the fifth stele.

His name was already added right at the top. The entry loomed above the other candidates like an unreachable peak, but it did little to lift Zac's spirits. The Eternal Servant had called him a thief, and he really felt like one now that the dust had settled. He'd pillaged the catacombs and was shown a vision meant for someone else. Like rejecting his notion, a screen appeared before him.

[Holy Son: Wielder of the flame]

Zac sighed in defeat as he looked at the title. It wasn't the first time he'd gained a title that didn't provide any attributes. He received the Pathstrider in E-grade, which 'marked him for further training.' Then there was his hidden Terminus title, whose purpose was still unknown. Zac scanned his body, finding no brand or impartment.

Even then, Zac had a strong hunch he'd been tricked again. By Laondio and the Eternal Servant waiting outside. The title had put a claim on his future in a way that his heritage failed to defend against. This encounter was another piece in the Laondio's vast plot, and Zac had been dragged further into the conspiracy. He was still clueless about the details, but he was almost certain his life wasn't at risk anymore.

Zac tried to glean something from the vision while the memory was fresh. The Imperial Fate was at the highest layer of reality, above the Dao and Laws. It would have made sense if it was part of the System, but it didn't seem like it. The System's aura was distinct from the Imperial Fate, and the former was at its strongest while the latter was waning.

It had almost felt like the Imperial Fate acted as a barrier covering all creation, protecting the Multiverse from the erosion. Was Ralz Kalzood actually right? Could there be threats lurking in that endless expanse?