Chapter 1,385 – Egged On

The Unvai Drakes were driven insane with anger from seeing their next generation smeared over Zac’s face and across the ground. The evildoer who had stolen their egg had disappeared without a trace after throwing it, and they turned their fury on the only other human on the shore. Runes ignited across their bodies, unleashing waves of draconic suppression. While their bloodline wasn’t as pure as the dragon Zac fought back in the Tower of Eternity, their strength was nearly two grades higher.

The beach shook, wet pebbles smoldering and crackling wherever the drakes passed. They were fast becoming living calamities, holding sputtering reservoirs of volcanic magma within their bodies. Their two long tails, covered with steaming vents, allowed them to run at great speeds while tilting forward.

Zac felt scorching heat coming from below as the silver sea behind him began boiling. The very air popped from the intense, destructive heat imbued into the domain. The beasts were able to harmonize their auras, creating an effect similar to a War Array. Most of the drakes were Late Beast Kings, with three even reaching the peak.

Adding the ancient bloodline pouring through their veins, they posed a formidable threat. Zac stood straight against the mounting pressure, welcoming the billowing waves of superheated mist. Normal cultivators would have lost half their strength when faced with even a sliver of a true dragon’s tyrannical aura.

Zac was no normal cultivator. The bloodlines coursing through his veins were no weaker than those of primordial dragons, and [Adamance of Eoz] fiercely rebuffed the inborn suppression. Zac’s eyes gleamed as he readied himself for battle. This was exactly what he needed to calm the storm within. And while the lineup looked daunting, it wasn’t like he’d have to face all of them at once.

Each Unvai Drake stood just over five meters tall. Despite being smaller than most D-grade beasts, only three or four would be able to strike at a time. The rest of the pack would be squeezed out and limited to ranged support. Zac planned on taking full advantage of that, which meant infighting was the way to go.

The stones beneath Zac’s feet exploded, and he shot out like a bullet. Dense clouds of Miasma spread across the beach as he closed the distance. Zac’s own domain skill was no match against the combined might of a score of infuriated drakes, especially when the ever-present rain kept undoing his efforts. Still, it was enough to put a lid on the growing heat that was turning the area into a caldera.

As a bonus, the island’s dense Illusory Energy meshed well with [Fields of Despair]’s sense-blocking ability. The drakes roared with anger and wariness from having their vision obscured, but they only panicked when their senses were trapped in a pitch-black abyss. Their fiery runes ignited with further power, quickly overcoming [Abyssal Drive]’s secondary effect. That small delay was enough for Zac to seize the momentum and draw first blood.

Darkness receded and was replaced by glowing red. A fountain of blood mixed with rain and flames as two scaly heads thumped onto the ground. Zac allowed the smoldering blood to wash over him before he disappeared, leaving only echoes of rattling chains behind. The next moment, he appeared before a third drake, his axe descending with brutal finality.

The beasts were shocked at seeing two of their members fall so quickly. Instead of eliciting thoughts of retreat, it only triggered greater brutality. Zac had expected as much. The drakes were a feisty species from the get-go, and the significant amounts of corruption they carried would inhibit attempts at rational thought.

Four of the beasts unleashed their dragon breaths, which in the case of Unvai Drakes were beams of superheated lava. It lacked the intense heat of true spiritual flames, but Zac still couldn’t take the torrents head-on. There was still only excitement in his eyes when he slightly adjusted his angle. His descending axe no longer targeted the drake’s neck, instead ripping open a deep wound on its chest.

A burst of intense heat leaked out of the punctured lung. Zac allowed it to push him out of harm’s way, narrowly dodging the four beams of lava. Meanwhile, a pitch-black chain pierced the wall of heat, digging right into the wound before it could cauterize. The drake desperately thrashed, and Zac was forced to add further distance. It didn’t save the beast from death’s grasp.

The third drake shuddered and spat out a gout of blood before collapsing. Streaks of deeper red joined the steady stream of blood pouring from the chest wound. It was the drake’s essence blood, which carried the most valuable parts of its draconic bloodline. The wound twisted and tore before a crushed heart, tightly wound in anthracite links, was ripped out.

Zac only spared a sliver of his attention for the chain or the other five that were busy corralling and confusing the berserking drakes. He’d already stepped into Void’s hidden trajectories to appear before a fourth drake from a blind angle. Its eyes swiveled, and the runes on its chest suddenly erupted.

A deafening explosion shook the beach, and pebbles shot out like cannonballs. Even a few of the drakes winced and were forced back from the incredible kinetic force instilled in the stones. A conflagration raged inside the epicenter’s crater. The angry flames looked like they could burn for all eternity, yet they shattered from a burst of death filled with murderous will.

Zac emerged from the flames, singed but otherwise fine, holding a drake’s head in his free hand. Rivers of blood poured from the jagged wound, dousing the lingering flames. He took a deep breath before shooting out again, all the while savoring the changes to his body. He fought like a beast, releasing all restraints on his billowing Killing Intent. Yet beneath the madness was a crystal-clear mind.

‘Blood… why is it so effective?’ Zac mused while a dripping chain delivered the crushed heart.

Zac spared no time in coating himself with another layer of Essence Blood, and he once more felt the ancient Killing Intent hum with contentment as it stabilized further. Then, a few slivers detached and underwent a magical transformation. The solitary strands were rapidly losing their bloody aura of vengeance, as though a deep-seated grudge had been resolved.

He wasn’t sure if what remained could still be considered Killing Intent. Whatever it was, it appeared even purer, at the cost of gaining an ephemeral nature. He’d seen the same thing with Primal Dao. Building on his earlier experiments, Zac quickly delivered his Dao of Defiant War to wherever pure intent appeared. It willingly accepted his Dao before disappearing into his spiritual body.

At that brief moment, Zac embodied war, feeling as close as he had ever been to his Dao. The complex and obscured battlefield around him became clear as day. The subtle fluctuations of energy within his enemies’ bodies, hidden beneath the storms they unleashed, exposed their next step. Zac might as well have been looking into the future, and he always knew the best response. The feeling of being guided by the insight and experience of a thousand masters lasted only a moment, yet it left a lasting mark on Zac’s understanding of conflict.

It wasn’t just his comprehension that benefited from the experience. Less than a percent of a percent of the rotating Killing Intent had been stripped away and absorbed by slaughtering a Late D-grade Beast King, yet it was enough to leave Zac’s heart fluttering with excitement.

The subtle transformation of his spiritual body wasn’t limited to moving it to his desired Conflict-attunement. The infusions were also advancing the grade of his spiritual body, which had been lagging behind as of late. It was an unavoidable consequence of his packed schedule. The [Thousand Lights Chapter] was ultimately a technique meant for spectral cultivators, and Zac could only practice the introductory stage.

His spiritual body had grown stronger when his soul did, allowing for a faster transfer of energies and Daos. It also somewhat improved his resistance against foreign Daos, and having a complete spiritual body had been his saving grace when assaulting Hegemony. Even so, the benefits couldn’t compare to the manual’s middle stages. Zac didn’t even have the method’s later layers, but he could only assume they would bring even greater advantages.

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Zac now found himself bridging that gap through simple, straightforward slaughter. It was as though he was providing offerings to the God of War and receiving tangible benefits in return. It didn’t matter in the slightest if each kill provided only negligible advancement. If there was one thing his path didn’t lack, it was bloodshed.

But why did drenching himself in the blood of his enemies prove more effective than just killing them? Was it that blood represented slaughter? Or was it related to the draconic bloodline hidden within it? Zac analyzed the phenomenon as he continued his siege on the floundering drakes. A fifth beast king fell, then a sixth. Each mournful wail came with a slight surge of benefits while the broiling domain weakened.