An intense, overwhelmingly pure wave of spirituality greeted Zac after a brief flicker of golden displacement. Rather than being close to the Heavens, it was as though he'd been transported right into it. His Void Road felt like a candle in the wind before a raging maelstrom of providence. It felt as though all the Destiny of the Limitless Empire bore down on his location. In some way, it likely did.
Not only that, Zac realized he had arrived at a location that was blessed by the Four Laws, like a Law-imbued treasure. The experience was a first for him. The Four Laws were always present, yet here they had been brought to the surface. He had never heard of cultivating Laws as one would Dao, but that didn't mean it was useless.
It would be much harder to go astray while cultivating when the Laws were right there to guide you. Prolonged exposure might even turn a cultivator into a Cosmic Being aligning with the Four Laws. Zac guessed the density was just enough to get a foot through the door, and that was after decades of exposure. It was not something that Sealbearers could benefit from. At most, they could remember the feeling and work toward aligning themselves with that memory.
Naturally, the Dao was also right there for the taking for those naturally capable of excavating its secrets. To Zac's immense surprise, even he could seize insights from empty air. It took a moment for him to realize he hadn't suddenly gained the abilities of true cultivators. This phenomenon wasn't natural. For one, there was actually the truth of Ultom mixed into the Cosmic Energy.
It was very diluted, far from the refined enlightenment he could extract from Corrupted Energy, let alone the insights imparted by the seals. Yet with a constant, steady stream, it felt like anyone here was microdosing Heavenly secrets. The second realization was that most of the Dao he felt in the air was not rootless.
He had arrived at an enormous square. It was the size of a city, allowing millions to comfortably fit inside. Behind him was a wall that sparked an old memory. While mostly intact when looking at it from the inside, he could spot a few damaged sections. Terrifying Dao was lodged in the scars, trying to reach the palace grounds.
Any errant streak from those ancient wounds held enough power to kill Zac ten times over, yet the castle walls kept him safe. Not only that, they were refining the hostile Dao. There were over a dozen mysterious runes glowing on the wall. It took Zac a moment to realize at least half of them matched attacks from his first vision of the Left Imperial Palace.
This wasn't a memory domain. He was standing in the present. Not only that, he wasn't alone. There were eight people seated in front of the glowing runes to study their Daos, much like how Zac pondered the Dao before the [Big Boss's Big Wall] in the Big Axe Coliseum. Zac was tempted to join them.
These insights were left by at least Peak Autarchs and had been refined by the Left Imperial Palace. Besides, there could be other inheritances left inside the runes than the traces of perfected Daos. More than one held the Dao of Conflict, and one held a mixed-meaning Dao of Death. While Zac didn't sense the Dao of Life from any of the marks, this was only one section of the palace walls.
On the opposite side was a palace fit for giants. The only way inside was a series of towering doorways, their arches looking much like the one inside [Fuxi Mountain Gate]. There were nine in total, of which only the largest door in the center was open. Standing at over fifty meters tall, the entrance didn't lead into the palace proper. Instead, it held a gateway made of the most intense Imperial Faith he'd encountered thus far.
Not only faith, the gate was also the source of the purified enlightenment that permeated the square. Despite being completely opaque, Zac almost felt he could see the small courtyard with its white pebbles waiting on the other side.
While it looked different from what he'd seen before, Zac suspected the Faith Gate would take him into the palace's memory domain. He wasn't in a rush to confirm his suspicion. There was no telling if entering would be a one-way trip, and there were a few minor passages to the side that seemed passable. He wanted to get his bearings before taking the leap.
A few of the early arrivals glanced his way as Zac stepped off the teleporter, or rather the teleportation platform. Having been sent from the past into the present, there was no active teleportation array at this end. Zac didn't recognize any of the people gathered in the square. He planned on approaching one to gather information. Before he could, there was a change on the distant horizon.
Zac couldn't see what waited outside the walls of the Left Imperial Palace, but the pillars of the Outer Courts remained in plain view. It was the one he perhaps knew most intimately that was undergoing a transformation. A ninth and final halo ignited at the Mercurial Court, causing the whole palace to tremble.
The successful ignition came as no surprise to Zac. He and Janos had ignited half the halos by themselves. Janos had even summoned a theoretical Supremacy holding the powers of Ancient Arcana to help out. If the Mercurial Court's top brass and the Realmsingers of Ultom couldn't bridge the rest of the gap, the Limitless Empire may as well give up on ever coming back.
It looked like Astora and the others had successfully rebuffed the invaders' final gambit. That hopefully meant that Janos' village was safe and successfully integrated with the Omnipresence Chamber. It also meant that he might be running into Astora Theomore again when he stepped through the golden Faith Gate. After all, this was her family grounds.
The pillar didn't calm down after completing its circuit of halos. It transformed into a gargantuan sun. From within, a stream of images came pouring forth. An ancient candle stood atop an altar, with dust filling its engravings. It had been waiting for eons, and its wait was over. The candle ignited, birthing the very sun that currently hovered in the distance.
The flame held transcendent power capable of unraveling the very rules that the Multiverse was founded upon. Zac also sensed himself in the flame, or rather the halos he was responsible for activating. They'd been meshed with the others, turning into a fierce heat that struck at two rusted chains that held down the altar. One was broken before the candle even ignited. The other couldn't endure flames meant to tear off two chains and swiftly succumbed.
The candle hadn't spent all its essence to sever the chain. Its flames drifted downward until finding another target. Some of its energy was lost during its travel, and what remained wasn't quite enough to finish the job. The third chain held on. Then, as if it never happened, Zac's vision returned to normal.
Zac didn't have time to settle before he almost had a heart attack. [Purity of the Void] was trembling. That on its own wasn't scary. His horror came from the fact that both the [Pasho'Har Bell] and Primo's Eye were sealed within. Either of the two could cause a calamity if they so much as turned around in their sleep.
Thankfully, it was just the [Court Cycle Token] that was transforming. New runes appeared on its side, superimposing over the pattern that responded to the Realmsingers of Ultom. As it did, the token gained strength, including the addition of a familiar presence.
It was Limitless Merit—the ultimate form of Destiny in the Limitless Empire. It was the same as the supreme Destiny stored inside the Wendimar Clan Token, only noticeably weaker. Zac guessed the exact number was somewhere around half a Limitless Merit. Zac's eyes gleamed with anticipation. Limitless Merit was exceedingly valuable, and the Left Imperial Palace was the only place on the continent to spend it.
If he got this much from a single pillar, what about when all nine were illuminated?
A rumbling groan made Zac turn around, just in time to see one of the previously closed entrances open. A similar Faith Gate waited on the other side of the path. Like the central path, it was mainly made of Imperial Faith. The difference was in the underlying aura of the First Era. It carried a slightly different tint to the enlightenment coming from the gate.
Zac was in no hurry to go over and investigate. If anything, he felt a much stronger pull from the central gate. Perhaps the new Faith Gate provided access to opportunities related to the Mercurial Court, or at least the Dao Peaks it represented. If that were the case, the central gate should be connected to the empire's core heritages.
'Did you see it?'Zac asked.
'I saw it! It was the same!'Esmeralda eagerly exclaimed from within the [Shrine of Kanba].
Esmeralda had used a forbidden art to observe the Left Imperial Expanse just before they were sent into the trial. She had seen nine unlit candles surrounding an altar, representing the outer courts and the Left Imperial palace. The altar had been tied down by four mountains and seventeen chains, seven of which had already eroded.
'What do you think?' Zac asked.
'Seventeen chains for the seventeen Dao Peaks. The already broken chain just now should represent the Peak of Continuum,'Esmeralda theorized.
'Why?'
'Because its Utmost Authority is already in the hands of the System thanks to that Stillsun fool,'Esmeralda said, her voice filled with indignation.
Zac could empathize with how she felt. Becoming a Seal or a Throne was generally considered the final destination on the road of cultivation, and Esmeralda was once one of the closest beings in the Multiverse to reach that height. Except that door was already closed to her. The Utmost Authority she needed was gifted to the System by the Apostate of Greed. Cultivators on the paths of Elements, Order, and Nature were in the same situation.
'Wait, you're saying the System already has seven Utmost Authorities?'Zac asked.
The numbers didn't add up. The First Defier was supposed to be an anomaly, while the other four Apostates gifted one Utmost Authority each. Considering what he'd learned about Laondio Evrodok, the Peak of Progress being the fifth was a safe bet. That still left two unaccounted-for peaks. It made sense that some would go into the System when it was constructed; Zac just didn't know which ones.
'Maybe? It's hard to say. Some of the chains could have snapped through some other form of assistance.'
'Nine chains left. Will the Ultom Courts open when all seventeen have snapped, or is this related to the Empire's resurrection?' Zac mused.
'Both, maybe? If not, the latter. Either case, it doesn't look like they'll need all nine courts to activate.'
Zac nodded in agreement. The altar started out with ten intact chains. Depending on distribution and luck, anything from five to seven completed pillars would finish the job. The distribution made Zac think of something else. Astora had said that they'd sacrificed six of their Flamebearer slots for the Empire's undertaking, leaving only three. The distribution was the same as the arrangement of chains.
Their telepathic discussion was interrupted by a second pillar reaching fruition. This time, it was the Daedalian Court. Zac wasn't sure when it had gained an eighth halo. It couldn't have been more than an hour or two ago, and it was already gaining another. Their setbacks at the Hollow and Anima Courts evidently hadn't tempered the Sangha's spirit.
A similar vision ensued, except the flame looked very different this time. It was split into two tongues, one of which held the clear mark of the Sangha. It hesitantly approached the other flame before backing away. Then, it dispersed into nothingness, leaving only a set of runes flickering in the vacuum.
It almost felt like they'd backed down, though the other flame had to deal with two chains on its own. It was a futile endeavor. One chain snapped, the other was barely signed before the candle ran out of steam. Zac wondered if his earlier estimate was off, seeing two pillars only deal with one chain each.
The changes kept coming. Three new halos emerged in the wake of the second pillar reaching completion, one of them Hollow Court's. It now sported seven halos, putting it behind only the Farsee Court. Another sigil on the [Courts Cycle Token] was upgraded, except this time the infusion of Limitless Merit was negligible. If the Mercurial Court provided half a point, then the Daedalian Court at most generated a tenth of one.
The fact that it gave anything at all indicated its functionality. It was likely not his own actions that provided the merit, but rather that of his cycles. Janos had been instrumental for the Mercurial Court. Meanwhile, Zac guessed that Galau hadn't caused much of a stir. That meant he probably shouldn't expect much from the Tethered, Starfall, and Farsee Courts either, all of which had relatively weaker Sealbearers.
Naturally, another gate had opened, further enhancing the ambience of enlightenment. The welcoming square was fast becoming a true cultivation paradise. Just getting here would count as a significant opportunity rivaling the good fortunes of the outer court. It was a shame he couldn't inform anyone of this.
'Look sharp. You have company,'Esmeralda suddenly said.
It was only at that point Zac realized one of the other Sealbearers was approaching him. Not only that, she was just twenty meters away, well within the bounds of his Soul Sense. And yet, he couldn't sense her presence at all, upgraded soul or not. She had to possess an extremely powerful aura-obscuring treasure or an exquisite innate skill to hide from his senses.
That wasn't to say she was trying to sneak up on him. She was walking toward him at a casual pace and smiled when noticed.
"Quite the commotion, wouldn't you say, Master Atwood?"
"Do we know each other?" Zac said with a slight frown.
"Apologies. I'm Tersephe Zinstra, and collecting information is a hobby of mine," the young woman said with an open smile.
Zac wasn't fooled by the frank demeanor. No simple character could make it here. Strength wasn't enough. It needed fate, either innate or in the form of a large amount of Imperial Merit.
"Can I do something for you?" Zac asked while trying to match her name or face with any intelligence on the outside. He drew a blank, as did Esmeralda.
"I wanted to inquire if Master Atwood is interested in an exchange of information?"
"What kind of information?"
"Anything you've seen during your travels through the Left Imperial Expanse. Big or small, I take it all as long as it's unique," Tersephe said in a tone that resembled a hawker's. "In return, I can share what I've discovered from the other courts, or even here at the palace. I can also exchange information for treasures, though my resources are running low."
"Why are you doing this?"
"Money, of course," Tersephe grinned. "I'm sure the big bosses outside will be quite interested in what happened here during the trial. It's hard for us Sealbearers to know exactly what's valuable and what's not. So long as I gather enough, I'm sure I can exchange it for further benefits."
Zac raised a brow. "If what you say is true, why would I sell my information at a discount to you when I can hold out for a larger payout on the outside?"
"Can you, though?" Tersephe countered. "According to what I know, your status is quite unusual. Not only that, rumor has it that you unleashed a slaughter of the Grand Unity Temple's disciples in the Hollow Court. Would you even dare approach the Supremacies outside and barter with them?"
Zac inwardly grimaced. It turned out his actions had already spread to this degree. Ultimately, the sudden disappearance of dozens of Sealbearers was impossible to hide. Someone had put the pieces together by now. Killing this information broker wouldn't make a difference. He had no idea where she got the information from.
It looked like he simply had to add another faction to his growing list of enmities. Of course, that didn't mean he would admit to anything outright.
"Those people got themselves killed," Zac shrugged. "And what makes you think you're qualified to trade with the Supremacies outside?"
"I'm not, but my backers are," Tersephe said.
"You're not afraid of getting beat up approaching strangers like this?" Zac asked. "Anyone who's come this far is bound to have picked up some good stuff."
"The first piece of information is free. Conflict is absolutely banned here. The Left Imperial Palace's grand arrays are still fully operational," she said, pointing at a slightly scorched spot close to one of the runes. "That's what happened to a guy who tried to ambush another Sealbearer mid-epiphany."
"Fine. I've picked up a thing or two," Zac said upon seeing the broker's eager expression. "Have you ever heard of an ancient Supremacy called Mox?"
"It rings a bell..." Tersephe slowly said.
Zac shared some general information such as Mox's infiltration of the Left Imperial Expanse and her grimoires. Just when he was getting to the good stuff, he switched gears.
"What's inside the palace?"
"Beats me," Tersephe frankly admitted.
"Some information broker you are," Zac scoffed.
"It's not my fault," she said helplessly. "Only Flamebearers can pass through that gate, and none of them have come back."
"None of them? Plural?"
"Yes," Tersephe winked. "I have names and dates, how they looked. Everything. So, how about it? I want the full scoop on Mox for that juicy piece of gossip. Let me tell you, only a few saw which ones entered right at the beginning. Not only that, this is exclusive information I haven't sold yet."
Zac didn't believe her for a second, but it didn't matter. "Alright, let's hear it."