A/N: And we're back! In case you missed it, I posted an update about the webtoon yesterday. Check it out if you haven't already!
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The dense haze of Apocalyptic Death blocked both vision and spiritual sense, making it impossible to see why the energy was gathering. Zac’s initial idea was that one of the C-grade Rapture Beasts had managed to seize an opportunity to use the eye’s spillage to ascend. Zac discarded the notion after some deliberation. The movements were simply too exaggerated.
The Primo’s eye had released enough energy to stuff a Divine Monarch to death a few times over. Meanwhile, the most powerful Rapture Beasts had merely been Middle Monarchs. If the movements were related to a Rapture Beast, it was rather the birth of an entirely new one. With both the eye and its spirituality gone, the odds of that weren’t high, unless it could exchange quality with quantity.
Zac saw no reason to stick around and confirm whether his guess was accurate. The Primo’s eye was secured and all their enemies were dead. While the tremendous amounts of Apocalyptic Death held great value to cultivation, Zac had no intention of partaking. He had all the energy he needed and more seeping out his personal Void, and refining it all would take days.
It was time to leave.
“Return to the source…” Tavza muttered as Zac went over the best options of retreat.
Zac turned to face a thoughtful Tavza. “Can you tell what’s happening?”
“This Dao is not natural, not of our time. Without the Lord’s eye to anchor it in the present, it should be trying to return to where it belongs,” Tavza explained.
“Where it belongs… The future?” Zac said with confusion, recalling that the Apocalyptic Death represented the Era’s demise. “Is that even possible?”
“If the eye sacrificed itself, maybe. Now? Hardly. This storm lacks the momentum to open a temporal tear,” Tavza said.
“Where does that leave us?”
Tavza glanced at Zac. “Space is more brittle than time.”
“It’ll go supernova, won’t it?” Zac groaned upon getting a nod of confirmation.
One of two things would happen next. Either a spatial vortex would open to swallow everything in the region. Alternatively, the ball of Apocalyptic Death would fail to reach critical mass and be forced to expel outward, triggering an explosion similar to a dying star. Either case, with the amounts of energy involved, nothing within thousands of miles would be spared. Before that happened, they needed to be long gone.
“Come, grab onto me! I’ll lead us back to a memory domain,” Zac said as he extended Haro’s vines.
“No need. I have my own method of returning to Internment Gate. Before that, I wish to explore the ruins of Ninth Hell. I’m afraid we’re witnessing the beginning of the end for this marvelous experiment. The insights that can be found here will soon be gone forever,” Tavza calmly said.
“Then…” Zac hesitated whether he should hitch a ride.
He was confident in navigating Ninth Hell with his current mastery of Fuxi’s Mantra, but why go through the trouble if he didn’t have to? From his current vantage, he couldn’t tell just how far from the Hollow Court he was. Besides, he had no real reason to return to the mirror world of Fuxi Halls.
Zac’s current objective was to resolve Verun’s condition, and he had gained nearly 45,000 Longanimity from removing the eye from Ninth Hell. There were undoubtedly plenty of valuable items in Fuxi Halls, but Ascension Gate’s affinity better aligned with his Life-Conflict attuned axe. Besides, Zac wasn’t sure if he’d ever manage to reach the true Fuxi Halls. The regional seal imposed during his breakthrough had shown no signs of weakening to the day he left with Emir.
“Don’t get yourself killed in the battle of Destiny. Never forget, you still owe a debt to the shores,” Tavza said, implicitly declining Zac’s request before it could be raised. “Oh, before I forget, take this.”
Zac looked on with confusion as a large anglerfish swam out of Tavza’s shadow. It shuddered a few times before it spat out a familiar figure. Ventus Kalavan was unconscious in a fetal position, cradling his knees. His face was deathly pallid, and swirls of Abyssal Death moved through his body. Thankfully, there was still a flicker of life keeping him afloat, preventing the elf from crossing to the other shore.
“He intentionally got himself devoured by my skill at the start of the battle. I figured he might have an agreement with you,” Tavza explained, adding after some thought. “His senses have been sealed all this while.”
“Good, thank you,” Zac said as he infused the Numerologist with a stream of Evolutionary Life to disperse the miasma in his pathways.
Ventus’ brows relaxed by a bit, but he remained unconscious. Zac had agreed to keep him safe to the best of his ability, and he was curious as to what happened to Ventus after he was captured. With the elf no longer standing at death’s door, Zac wrapped him up with Haro’s vines before stuffing him inside his Worldring. Doing so put some strain on the Spatial Tool that already housed the Skyrender Vine, but it would be fine so long as Ventus didn’t start running amok inside. Zac also surrounded the patient with some Cosmic Crystals so his recovery wouldn’t draw from the ring’s own energy reserves.
“Then, I’ll see you on the outside. I’ll come visit as soon as I can,” Zac promised.
Tavza nodded, and the next moment she was swallowed by a swirl of Abyssal water. No matter how Zac scanned his surroundings, he couldn’t find a trace of Tavza. With her gone, the small sanctuary she’d erected rapidly deteriorated from the gathering winds. Zac had just got the massive amounts of imbibed death under control when a second helping started burrow into him.
Zac knew he’d be stuffed beyond bursting if he stayed any longer. He activated [Empyrean Aegis], enclosing himself in a protective barrier of Life. It greatly lessened the pressure as Zac called on the illusory runes of Fuxi’s mantra swirling in his mind. Chaos gave way to order, helping Zac plot a course through the swirling maelstrom. There were no safe paths, but there were routes that would exhibit less resistance.
He burst forth as a streak of tearing life, planning to cut through the currents of Apocalyptic Death with [Skystriker]. To his shock, the force imbued into the storm far surpassed his expectations. His speed barely eclipsed a mortal’s sprint, and there were dozens of miles that he needed to cross before reaching the normal environment of Ninth Hell.
The churning density of energy made forming stable Void Vortices impossible, and the energy was so pervasive that there were no hidden safe routes through the Void. He was trapped in a quagmire with few cards left to play.
“At least I’m alone this time,” Zac muttered as he swallowed a fire-warding pill. The next second, Zac turned into a streak of roaring flames that forced its way through the miasmic storm. In the blink of an eye, he’d moved hundreds of miles.
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Tavza knew time was of the essence, yet she couldn’t help but stare at the lingering display a few moments after stepping out of the Abyss. The world of darkness was briefly illuminated in a gamut of warm colors. A firework of red and blue spread in every direction. Only one streak survived while the false paths were quickly consumed by the Lord’s remnant death. A scene at the heart of the explosion lingered a few moments longer, a scene that briefly made Tavza’s mind shut down.
Painted in the sky was an oddly beautified Zachary Atwood forlornly gazing at the sky through a window. The apparition briefly looked back, and Tavza felt as though he looked right into her soul with an utterly alien expression. She saw warmth, attachment, and admiration. It was a gaze full of love. The fleeting moment passed before something changed.
The gaze hardened, gaining unmovable conviction that would have felt more in line with Zac’s personality, if not for the feminine features. The faux Zac leapt out the window and turn into streak of fiery starlight, leaving only a single tear behind. The vision faded, turning into a parting message.
Warm hearths, star's beckoning
The Heavens call for a reckoning
Diverging paths, splitting hearts
I shed the cover, I wipe the dust
Love fades before Dao's wanderlust.
“Is this how you see the Heavenly Path? What would Catheya think if she saw this?” Tavza mused, a small smile tugging at her lips as she recorded the scene.
Shortly after, the Apocalyptic Death had swallowed the last traces of her companion’s ostentatious departure. Shaking her head, Tavza flew toward an abandoned building closer to the nucleus growing in the observatory’s heart. There’d be time to ask Zac about the meaning behind the message the next time they met.
Once housing one of the strongest Rapture Beasts, it was now plastered with decaying flesh and turbulent death. The discharge of energy had infused the local tyrant beyond its breaking point, making Tavza’s task much easier. She made her way to the building’s deepest interiors, breathing out in relief upon seeing the chaotic scars covering the walls.
Tavza infused the wall according to a hidden pattern she’d subconsciously learned during her brief encounter with the enigmatic Primo. She’d only realized this knowledge had been implanted upon laying her eyes on the Rapture Observatory—a parting gift by the Lord upon their first meeting.
“I have completed the assignment. The eye is with Lord’s champion. I beseech the Lord to arrange harbor.”
The storm outside briefly stilled as part of it was diverted from the building anti-sun. It was pulled into the building, filling the seemingly random scratches with a new dimensions of meaning. Lines widened into feathers that moved to surround a solitary eye. The darkness of its pupil grew deeper and deeper until Tavza could see nothing else. As she was pulled in, she heard a distant voice in the depths of her mind.
‘Thus, Karma dies.’
Tavza felt a rush of success when she appeared on a small patch of land in a forgotten corner of Ninth Hell. It was no more than fifty paces across, most which was taken up by a courtyard. She curiously looked at a small pond that felt almost as mysterious as the Abyssal Lake back home before turning toward the sole structure.
It was crafted from bones, and a curtain of darkness prevented her from seeing anything inside. Nevertheless, Tavza knew it was far from as simple as it appeared. After all, it was the residence used by the Lord during the construction of the Hollow Court. With eager steps, Tavza approached the hut. It was time to write some history of her own.
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A vast desert steeped in silence stretched out across the horizon. It held no sanctuaries, no oases to escape the endless gloom. Any being unlucky enough to find themselves standing on its obsidian dunes would swiftly erode until they became part of the sands. Today, a wind swept through the desert, causing a change to the established status quo.
Sands shifted to realign the landscape. While it might look like a normal event at a cursory glance, a look from above would prove it anything but. A million dunes rearranged themselves to look exactly alike. They now looked like a million eyes that stared into the murky sky above.
‘Death returns…’ A drawling whisper swept through the desert.
Galgallim observed the vast tapestry of Death, sensing that a lost piece of his Kingdom had returned to his Authority. He could feel his eye socket itch, and vague images passed through the Grand Tapestry. Abyss, Void, Space. An unexpected mix, yet it made no difference. History was repeating itself, and Karma had already been sown.
The sea of eyes slowly closed, yet the stirrings left a lasting mark on the world. Power was gathering in the depths, pushing an eternal stillness toward motion. The Heart was so close to resuming its beat. It only needed a final push to cross the threshold, bringing past into the present and eons of effort to fruition.
The Heart still lacked sustenance, which wouldn’t be difficult to find. As the Era turned, ambitions would die and fates realign. Galgallim hoped it wouldn’t be the children he’d nurtured over the long years that would make the ultimate sacrifice. Then again, in the long sands of time, new Supremacies would rise to replace what was lost. It was an inevitable return to the origin.
Beyond the sands, a vast civilization sang of Armageddon and clamored for war. Blood would flow and death would spread, as it was meant to do.
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Reality groaned as more than one supreme existence stirred. The countless practitioners across the cosmos might be blind to the changes to the curtain, but how could those gathered on the shores be unaware? A fourth realignment in the Grand Tapestry in such a short window could only mean one thing. The heritages of the Limitless Empire were being excavated one by one.
As the fabric of reality shifted, the blockade grew less absolute. Avaricious stares were locked to the Left Imperial Expanse, deducing weaknesses and plotting. Yet no one wanted to be the first to make their move. Auban could understand the sentiment. The apparent weakness held a high risk of being a trap, not to mention that it would put you in the System’s crosshairs. Understanding the rational didn’t make it any less disappointing.
“Blessings, blessings,” the monk sighed. “Troubled times, indeed.”
“Since when did the Sangha begrudge the Cosmos some suffering?” Auban jeered.
“Naturally, this Poor Monk would prefer peace and harmony over strife. Suffering can be the road to enlightenment, but it could also be the road to damnation,” Blessed Fate said with a smile. “Should benefactor be interested, you’re welcome to discuss the precepts at length at my humble temple.”
“I may be old, but I’m not old enough to throw my life away like that,” Auban scoffed. “I would have expected that lot would have acted by now. Aren’t you afraid strangers will run away with the family relics?”
Auban didn’t need to look at the trio of crowned giants seated on ostentatious thrones nearby to make it clear who he was talking about, nor did the ancient emperors bother responding to the taunt.
“Benefactor jests. The Karmic entanglement is plain to see. Further agitation may have unexpected consequence,” Blessed Fate turned to look at the emperors. “Caution is advised, or the new may become the old. No one wishes to see the Limitless Empire return. Of course, the Sangha is more than willing to cleanse the Karma if we’re allowed to open a branch on—”
“That will not be necessary.” The rejection was absolute, holding the power of an Imperial Edict.
If there were any wandering monks within the Seven Heavens at this moment, they’d likely found themselves under unbearable pressure. Auban had to admit that the power of rule these upstart clans had accumulated over the years was quite impressive. Which made it all the more confusing as to why their Imperial Qi had started aligning itself with the continent’s Destiny.
Were they truly arrogant enough to think they would be able to safely swallow the prize whole? Or that those gathered today would just sit idly by? Auban would have thought the disaster at the mausoleum could temper their hubris.
Then again, Auban felt he could sense fury bubbling beneath the surface. His thumb ran along the ancient wood of his fishing pole as his smile returned. Had someone made a move in the shadows, turning the Imperial Qi into bait for the Limitless Empire’s remnant Destiny? If so, they’d acted so secretly that Auban failed to catch even a shadow of their actions.
Auban threw out his fishing pole again. He could be patient for a while longer.