Chapter 1,400 – Blood and Moonlight

The greed of man greeted Zac the second he emerged from Esmeralda’s spatial pocket. It wasn’t dense enough to influence Zac at its current density. If anything, it lent a helping hand. Their enemies thought they could use the moonlight to expose hidden threats, but both Esmeralda and Idiche had ways to elude their senses. With that false sense of security and Zac acting as a decoy, they would be less likely to notice a problem.

Zac was confident that Idiche would live up to her promise so long as she reached the Hall of Abundance, though not for the reasons she believed. He had faith in the gathering winds rather than in her personal capabilities. It had become increasingly obvious to Zac and Esmeralda that the power slumbering within the Vice Guild Leader of the Explorer’s Guild wasn’t a random soul sliver reincarnated into an Outer Disciple.

Idiche should be the next generation’s Sevona.

As Esmeralda said, letting Idiche take the Divine Core would lead to the resurrection of an ancient goddess. Zac had agonized over whether this was a good or bad thing since first suspecting Idiche’s true identity. Would her awakening play into the goals of the invaders? A newly ascended goddess might not be in control of her power, and the process could create an opening for the other side.

Seeing the powerful entity’s urgent attempts to intercept their approach left Zac leaning toward the belief that this was not the case. Furthermore, Idiche might be the Mercurial Court’s hidden weapon against the otherworlders. Zac even suspected her second identity was the reason why the Eighth Elder had taken Idiche as a disciple in the first place.

A talent of the outer courts would be considered a Heaven’s Chosen wherever they went, standing head and shoulders above any random Peak Hegemon of the Empire. At the same time, her abilities weren’t at the level that should draw the attention of a figure like Elder Istazh. The ten strongest cultivators of the Mercurial Court had to be extraordinary Autarchs.

And yet, Elder Istazh had taken such keen interest, even outfitting Idiche with priceless artifacts. The secret discipleship was the elder council’s way of influencing the course of events without breaking whatever restrictions kept them in check. Letting Idiche absorb the Divine Core would end the hunt early and undo the island’s seal, all while foiling the enemy’s plans.

Zac’s instincts told him there was an even deeper plot at play. Esmeralda’s comment when they stepped into the lodge kept ringing in his ears. Sevona’s divinity held trace energies similar to those of the Eternal Guardians. Or rather, it held traces of the Stellar Wanderers, one of the Ancient Arcana—the very same Ancient Arcana whose Dao-transcending nature acted as the foundation for the Omnipresence Chamber.

The invaders wanted Sevona’s divinity to ensure they were the ones to survive when the dream ended. The Mercurial Court probably wanted Sevona to reinforce the weakening barriers between the Omnipresence Chamber’s timelines. Zac had been swept up in an existential struggle for survival. Winning meant extraordinary rewards. Directly gaining access to the [Second Singularity] wasn’t out of the question.

Of course, that was provided he survived the next hurdle.

“There he is. The prodigal son,” Kaltosa Lu smiled as Zac stepped into the war-torn lobby.

His arrival was met with mixed reactions. The remaining invaders tensed upon seeing another threat step into the ring while the newly arrived Monarch bristled in anger. Traces of Zac’s Abyssal Death were still all over the lobby. It was impossible to miss Zac’s involvement in the deaths of his companions. The Monarch only held himself back because of Descartes calmly standing to his side. The Monarch wouldn’t move until his leader conveyed his intentions.

“You could have given me a heads-up, you know?” Kaltosa Lu sighed as if there were no one else there. “You almost cut me in two just now.”

“How was I supposed to know you’d hidden yourself inside his body? In fact, how are you even here?” Zac countered while drawing closer.

The Elemental’s words were an unwelcome reminder he’d been given a front-row seat to Zac’s hidden abilities. He couldn’t help that more and more people knew about his ability to control Void Energy, but very few truly understood what that meant. The ability to instantly activate skills with [Force of the Void], and that doing so would bypass most barriers, was one of his most tightly guarded secrets.

That was something Zac only exposed when going in for the kill. You could say he’d lowered his guard to deal with these figments of the past because he’d never have expected a fellow trial taker to be hiding right next to him. Consequently, Kaltosa Lu knew about [Force of the Void], which would come back to bite him in the ass one way or another.

The Elemental had already managed to expose most of Zac’s abilities while hunting him for days on end. Figuring out a plan against the scheming Elemental simply wasn’t possible. Since that was the case, Zac would have to go in the opposite direction. He’d throw the hunt on its head and ruin everyone’s schemes. From there, he would seize victory in the chaos.

“If there’s a will, there’s a way. That’s just as true for life as it is for love. And with fate’s rising tide, the needed performers will be swept into the heart of the storm. We’ll—HEY!” Kaltosa Lu exclaimed with genuine surprise when Zac turned into a blur.

Four warriors were cut down by Zac’s axe despite being on guard. Zac emerged from a mist of blood, now wielding a justiciar’s cloak and standing three meters tall. He’d activated three skills at once: [Inexorable Subjugation], [Arbiter of the Abyss], and [Fatehew]. The first slowed down the targets the instant his chains were within reach, the second redirected their counters just enough to create an opening. The last one seized the moment and sealed their fates before Descartes or the Monarch could react.

“Bastard!” the wounded Monarch roared.

He no longer waited for Descartes’ go-ahead, disappearing before Zac could target a second clump of recovering soldiers. The C-grade leader appeared before Zac in the blink of an eye. It wasn’t rapid movement but true teleportation. Zac sighed upon confirming his opponent was a Spatial Cultivator, and speed wasn’t his only weapon.

Zac felt as though the dimensional fabric had shrunk around him to create a suffocating cage. The spatial prison was powered by the Monarch’s C-grade energy and stabilized by the weight of his Inner World. Kaltosa Lu conjured a series of arrays meant to countermand the effect, but the array disks were torn apart by a swipe of Descartes’ hand. The Elemental found himself stuck in a cautious exchange where two experts looked for gaps in their opponent’s path.

Zac was left to deal with the assault on his own, and the spatial restriction wasn’t one that raw power could overcome. Using the Void to break free was premature. Since dodging wouldn’t work, he would simply have to endure the strike. It was a decision Zac started to regret the moment a small black ball shot out of the Monarch’s sleeves.

It crackled with barely contained Spatial Energy, though what little it leaked was promptly sucked back inside. The Spatial Cultivator had actually been growing a fake black hole, relying on its energy-hiding characteristics to avoid detection. It resulted in a similar advantage to when Zac relied on [Force of the Void], where he had to deal with a fully charged skill appearing out of nowhere.

The black hole tore through the four chains and the urgently activated [Profane Proxy]’s barrier. Zac managed to divert nearly half the force by combining [Arbiter of the Abyss] and the pygmy wielding the force-shifting black wind. That left him with a final layer of protection; the breastplate formed by [Love’s Bond]. Its defenses had sharply risen since its upgrade, and Zac believed it capable of resolving most of the remaining threat.

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Perhaps arriving at the same conclusion, the Spatial Monarch didn’t give Zac the opportunity to find out. Zac cursed when the black hole suddenly disappeared in a small ripple. The next moment, he was wracked with intense agony. The attack had performed a short-range teleportation, narrowly passing Zac’s armor to strike at his guts on the other side. It tore through flesh and viscera, heading straight for his Duplicity Core.

Zac desperately fought back against the spatial collapse headed for his Core. [Adamance of Eoz] woke with a defiant roar, turning his energy into an enduring wall. Death, Conflict, and even Life worked in concert with his Hidden Nodes to exhaust the attack. Zac was left with a nasty crater in his stomach, but the attack failed to reach his Duplicity Core.

The scream of danger didn’t wane from enduring the attack. It only grew louder. His opponent was hot on his heels, turning into a mesh of figures striking from every direction. It made no difference that each attack only held a fraction of the black hole’s force. They were more than strong enough to cause injuries, thus demanding a proper response.