His bodies had been reduced to puppets that continued their owner's last order: maintain his Void Self and guard his memories. Time lost its meaning as Zac fiercely held onto the thread of existence stored inside the crystallized kernels of Mental Energy. It seemed like centuries passed in the darkness before Zac's mind sharpened and new thoughts started to form.
It was the supercharged nebulae that were finally emerging from his Cosmic Core, tempered and carrying a large amount of energy. The golden nebula that previously surrounded his Inexorable Core poured into the drifting stardust left from his Evolutionary Core's collapse. A similar scene happened at his other Soul Core.
It was at that point his Dao Avatars made their entrance. Zac finally had enough presence of mind to conjure the avatars of Life and Death. He placed them in the center of the gathering clouds. They became guiding lights that kept his drifting soul together. Meanwhile, the avatar of Defiant War appeared between the two spiritual clouds.
His axe danced as he moved through Quantum Space at incredible speed, gathering tails of Mental Energy in his wake. When he approached the golden cloud, he followed his Inexorable Stance, which triggered a recoil in the amorphous sea of unfettered anima. Hidden within the vast reservoirs of Life were significant amounts of Conflict-attuned spirituality.
Contrary to the Life-attuned part, it was all his. Conflict was first introduced to his Soul Cores during his previous breakthrough, which resulted in Evolutionary and Inexorable Soul Cores instead of simply Life and Death Attuned Cores. At that point in time, the balance was completely eschewed, with Conflict occupying only ten percent of the total.
Since then, Zac had constantly been making up for the insufficiency. The following years inside the Perennial Vastness set the foundation, and the work never stopped. Every desperate battle in the Intersector War had steeped him in Conflict, naturally helping his realignment. Not only that, his soul itself was a generator of conflict.
Nebulae of opposing Dao surrounded his Soul Cores, causing constant friction and tempering. Accordingly, the cores were eventually balanced to emulate his Inexorable and Evolutionary paths. With the terrifying infusion of the First Garden's Life and the Ninth Hell's Death, balance had once more been uprooted.
Thankfully, the Dao of War still held enough sway over his Soul Cores. The drifting clouds contracted as an air of ferocity erupted from their depths. Clouds roared into action like armies readying themselves for battle.
The Dao Avatar of Defiant War maintained the role of a general that rallied his men. It kept moving between his two cores, each visit furthering their agitation. With more of the nebulae's energy returning from his Cosmic Core, the commotion grew and grew. Soon enough, the two clouds expanded to the point that their borders touched.
A tremendous shudder swept through Zac's soul, causing him to groan with pain. It was as if the two armies had finally seen the enemy their general had warned of, igniting a fierce fighting spirit. The conflict triggered an arms race where neither side was ready to give in. Soon enough, what his Cosmic Core provided wasn't enough, and the gathering forces began conscripting the well's rootless Mental Energy.
It still wasn't enough. The gears of war were turning, and nothing would stop their march. Most of the well's energy had already been absorbed when Zac supercharged his nebulae, leaving very little in his Quantum Space. The gathering forces first turned to the ancient pill. Indeed, it was steadily providing Mental Energy along with its priceless spirituality, but it took some time to refine.
Zac's consciousness grew clearer the stronger the clouds became. He understood he couldn't allow the momentum to falter, so he activated [Earthly Dome] once more. Four new vortices opened; two inside his Quantum Space and another two further down the well. A steady stream of water came pouring in, bringing amnesia and the promise of power.
It was a calculated risk that paid off. The forgetfulness was ground to dust by the warring sides; how could an army forget its mission when their enemy was at their gates? The water itself was discarded, and Mental Energy was drawn into the clouds.
Just when it looked like an all-out war between Evolutionary Life and Inexorable Death would erupt, when his Soul Aperture trembled from the strain, a tremendous inward pull erupted from the two kernels of Mental Energy. Huge clouds were pulled back into themselves, and their essence was drawn into the kernels in a soundless implosion of Dao.
The kernels couldn't contain it all and were forced to spit out some of what they had taken. Two pulses swept through the Quantum Space, and his worn-and-torn Soul Aperture immediately recovered. Not only that, it grew much stronger than before, especially in the center of Quantum Space.
Two radiant gemstones floated in space. The kernels had swallowed more than half of the fused energies of the spiritual clouds, growing to ten times their original size. They were still surrounded by small nebulae of energy. This scene differed from his old Soul Cores. Before, it was life surrounded by death and vice versa. This time, the respective forces had gathered in the same spot.
Zac knew he'd succeeded at that point. His soul had undergone reincarnation. From here, the Soul Cores could stabilize on their own, slowly absorb the orbiting energy until only a solid remained. The cores already held enough weight to cause a constant gravitational pull on their surroundings, like black holes that would swallow everything that came too close.
But why should he stop here?
The ancient pill still had plenty of energy to spare. Its spirituality enabled unfettered growth, and he had plenty of energy to spare. This was exactly what he'd planned for when devising his strategy. He wasn't content just to stabilize his position in the fifth layer. Preparation and circumstance came together to continue his advancement.
Tempered Mental Energy still poured out of his Cosmic Core. Life was provided by the ancient pill, while his Draugr half kept repositioning himself inside the Void Realm. He only dared to harness the refined Apocalyptic Death on the surface of the deposits. Being greedy and targeting the raw Apocalyptic Death came with consequences, including giving the Primo a direct connection to his soul.
In the first place, Zac only dared to use the Primo's energy because of [Void Vajra Sublimation]. When he'd shattered the Earthly Shackles of the fifth layer, he'd freed himself from the influence of Authority. He wouldn't be able to borrow the strength of their seniors as Iz and most of the Flamebearers could, but neither would he be restrained by utilizing "someone else's" Dao.
Zac assiduously persisted in channeling [Void Emperor Apotheosis] without pause, and the clouds surrounding his kernels grew. They reached the scope of before and kept going. Three days passed, during which most of the ancient pill had been refined. Similarly, Zac had helped himself to most of the refined death inside the Void Realm.
War raged throughout the Quantum Space, annealing his aperture through ceaseless conflict. If not for the earlier reinforcement, they would have directly collapsed. By the end of the third day, the opposing armies reached critical mass, and yet another implosion halted the war. The pain briefly made Zac blank out.
When the dust settled, the kernels had grown yet again, dwarfing the surrounding clouds. Similarly, his aperture had gained another wave of tempering, expanding further. They now reached all the way to his four Shattered Sky Nuclei, leaving only the Quantum Space's outer reaches weak.
Zac slowly exhaled. When his Soul Cores first shattered, it meant he'd gone beyond the [Nine Reincarnations Manual]'s fourth layer. The first true implosion of the kernel meant successfully entering the early stage of the fifth. With their next evolution complete, his Soul Cores had already stepped into the middle stages.
Reaching this point was Zac's minimum for considering his breakthrough a success. Any less would have been a waste of such a supreme pill. That didn't mean Zac was satisfied. The pill had some more to give, his mind remained steady, and his Soul Aperture was sturdier than ever. With days remaining on the clock, he'd be letting himself down if he didn't opt for greed and push the envelope.
Willingness was one thing; reality was another. The pill and Void Realm didn't have enough juice left to finish another implosion. Even if they did, Zac wasn't sure if he dared to rely on them. He'd already absorbed dangerous levels of external spirituality. He needed something to balance out the First Garden's Life and the Ninth Hell's Death. Luckily, he had just the thing.
Two sets of remnants were dragged from their trajectories. Strings of Void and Mental Energy rushed into them, ruthlessly extracting threads of spirituality that didn't fit. Zac was using [Cosmic Forge] directly inside his Quantum Space. The forceful approach was fast destabilizing the remnants, which was exactly what he wanted to see.
Before they could explode, Zac sent them flying toward his Soul Cores like moths to the flame. Under Zac's crushing will, they effortlessly shattered, unleashing all their forces of Creation and Oblivion in one go. The freed energies fused with the churning clouds, introducing new blood to its fading glory. Between [Cosmic Forge] and being refined by his Dao for years, their spirituality was much closer to Zac's path than the foreign Dao.
Two sets had already been sacrificed during his Core Formation, meaning only a single set remained at this point. Zac didn't care. They never recovered from the forced overdrafting during the earlier stages of the trial, so they were more useful as raw ingredients. Not to mention, his normal skills had mostly caught up to [Extinction Event] and [Origin Revolution] in lethality.
Adding the raw material of the remnants to his Soul Cores was no different from increasing the size of his spiritual container. The draw on ambient Mental Energy skyrocketed after having tapered off over the past days, and the war between Life and Death resumed. Still, Zac could tell the collisions weren't as intense as before.
It was no wonder. The Conflict-attunement had already been diluted to less than a third. Adding the spirituality of the remnants, he was approaching ten percent. This was as far as he could go. Conflict was already at risk of being squeezed out of his Soul Cores, returning them to their original state. Zac wouldn't let that happen.
With the foundation set, Zac turned to another reservoir and ripped its gates wide open. The Quantum Space soon darkened as a boundless murderous intent came rushing in. The war between Life and Death not only reignited; it reached unprecedented levels of intensity. Once more, vast amounts of well water and rootless Mental Energy had to be supplemented.
The source of the reignited conflict was naturally the Ancient Killing Intent. Zac reached the limit of how much intent he could infuse into his [Thousand Axes Avatar] long ago. Since then, he'd kept the foreign intent inside his [Shrine of Kanba]. He only extracted a few slivers during pitched battles to enter a flow state or when he used it to bolster his skills in the battle for the Primo's Eye.
Zac gauged the result when the ancient intent came into contact with the well's water. His eyes lit up like torches, and he threw all caution to the wind. Zac could feel the winds of Destiny urging him on, that the idea he'd cooked up held merit. After safeguarding the resource for months, he poured every little bit he had into his Quantum Space.
The ancient intent that entered with unstoppable momentum stalled as its sharp edges were washed away by the sloshing water of forgetfulness. Soon enough, it was as malleable as the slivers he refined through bloodshed.
Knowing it was time, Zac pushed his own Killing Intent into the Quantum Space. While not as polished as the ancient intent, it was seemingly bottomless. Every parcel represented a bitter struggle, a bloody cobblestone that made up his path. It melded with the ancient intent, complementing each other into an unstoppable force.
Zac's target was neither his Soul Apertures nor the growing clouds surrounding them. He wove his own intent with that of the Eternal Avengers before he infused it into the reformed Soul Aperture. The very air of the space that had been improved by the pulses saw a subtle shift. From a simple spiritual enclave, his Soul Aperture was fast turning into a temple of war.
It wasn't dumb luck that allowed him to succeed. The idea was first born from his exchanges with Thea. Her insight into Sword Intent and how she made it part of her path had filled critical gaps in his incomplete [Thousand Axes Avatar]. From there, he'd ventured into corrupted pockets of the Anima Court to fill up on Ultom's Enlightenment. They ratified his plan and improved upon it.
The balance of affinities was bound to become a problem the moment he involved the Supreme Daos of the First Garden and Ninth Hell. That wasn't something a few Conflict-attuned Soul-nurturing treasures could remedy—not that Zac could afford them anyway. If he planned on pushing farther with the pill, he needed another solution.
Zac had started out [Nine Reincarnations Manual]'s fourth layer with a similar skew between his Daos, but the situation back then was different. His Soul Cores still held mostly his own Daos. He could forcibly maintain balance until the disparity was remedied. Now, a huge amount of foreign Dao propped up his Soul, making that journey more difficult.
His solution was to extend the scope of [Thousand Axes Avatar] rather than use the Killing Intent to directly add Conflict to his Cores. Conflict would become the environment, constantly tempering and nourishing his Soul from the outside. And it was already working. The faltering Conflict fused into his Soul Cores rallied as the aperture's attunement strengthened.
The effect was twofold. First, it kept his Dao of War from being expelled. Secondly, the Soul Cores themselves were affected by the constant interaction with the Killing Intent. Slowly, their trajectories shifted, and they picked up speed. Round and round, they orbited his Cosmic Core, their final destination clear as day.
The Quantum Space rumbled as the two Soul Cores collided at terrifying speed. Zac's vision swam, feeling as if his soul had been hit by a wrecking ball. Neither side won the battle. They were thrown away by the force, shrunken down by a third. It wasn't just their size that had been reduced. They'd lost some of their essence in the collision.
Unconvinced, the Soul Cores began resorbing Mental Energy and the essence they'd lost as they picked up speed again. Another collision soon shook the Quantum Space, then another. Time after time, the cores smashed into each other, each skirmish cutting away weakness while leaving a hardened core.
Finally, after dozens of strikes and pulling dangerous levels of Mental Energy into his Quantum Space, the cores weren't thrown back after coming together. The momentum was turned inward, causing them to implode one final time. A powerful suction erupted, and much of the discarded essence was sucked back in.
Zac carefully observed the situation and soon began expelling vast amounts of rootless Mental Energy, even some supreme Life and Death. It wasn't that he didn't want it, it simply would do more harm than good. He'd finally compressed the cores into unbreakable diamonds. To absorb all this energy would make him stronger on paper, but it would be a hollow strength. The moment his Soul was put to the test, pieces would come falling off.
Finally, the blinding light faded, exposing the final form of his Soul. Two black holes—one gold and one black—were trapped in each other's event horizons, grinding against each other to form something resembling an infinity symbol. His Dao Avatars of Reborn Life and Sealed Death took their positions atop the glowing spheres, while his avatar of Defiant War settled right at the intersection where a constant storm raged.
The black holes were fixed to each other, but they weren't static. They slowly rotated from their position atop his Cosmic Core. When the Evolutionary side faced the world, the whole Quantum Space was filled with the warm light of Life. Everything seemed possible. When the positions switched, the darkest night descended. Death reigned, and fates were sealed.
At that point, the ancient pill was fully spent, and his Draugr half stepped out of the Void. However, he didn't leave the [Well of Forgetfulness]. Over and over, he cycled through [Void Emperor Apotheosis], further stabilizing his soul and tempering his [Thousand Axes Avatar]. As the wheels of his soul kept turning, pieces of unstable Dao were ground to dust and rejected.
The constant grinding acted as a generator of conflict, and the imbalance was slowly being remedied. Of course, it would take decades to fix the issue without him actively interfering. Right now, Zac was satisfied with simply getting his soul to a stable state that was moving in the right direction.
Suddenly, a piercing whistle entered his ears.
"AAAAHHHH, IT HURTS! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"
Zac's heart jumped into his throat as his eyes shot open. He took out the alarm clock with shaky hands and almost threw it into the depths. It was still screaming bloody murder. What the hell was that design? Still, it had provided a timely reminder. A week had passed, and it was time to leave.