Chapter 1,416 – Lord of the Underworld

The Hollow Chasm became drenched in darkness. The churning clouds wanted to reach into the pit, but the Earth rejected Heaven’s encroachment on its domain. Bloody contours of countless shadows were illuminated along the rims by a flickering, angry red. For a moment, Zac felt as though a billion warriors had risen from their graves to face Heaven’s wrath.

The moment passed as the clouds heaved to unleash a first bolt. Zac couldn’t sense any Law imbued in the lightning, but the intensity far surpassed what he had faced hours ago. He made no move to share the burden. Ogras wasn’t one to risk his life out of pride, and his solemn but steady demeanor suggested he had a plan.

Ghastly wails reverberated through the chasm as Ogras fully unfurled the [Shadewar Flag]. It stretched for dozens of meters, expanding into a canopy of shadows. It felt as though a world was hidden within, though it remained hollow and illusory.

Nine wraiths emerged from the flag. These were not the throwaway specters that came with the cursed treasures, like those Ogras sacrificed inside the Hidden Earth Abode. These captives were the true prisoners of Ogras’s purgatory, heretics and assassins who had all broken the four cardinal laws.

Ogras rarely used the [Shadewar Flag] since only its true prisoners remained. There were too many restrictions on bringing them out, and Ogras’s Karma would be tainted if he broke those rules. They’d only made a few appearances, like when fighting Kan’Tanu Cultists or Qriz’Ul. Still, Zac realized the ghosts were somewhat different from before.

Like Avīci’s giants, they were hollow, though not completely. They still held a shred of destiny, a final glimmer of hope. The specters barely endured the punishment despite only carrying a fraction of the true wrath. But doing so transformed them for reasons Zac couldn’t explain.

The incorporeal thralls went from looking indistinguishable from each other to gaining unique characteristics. One grew taller, and part of his form separated into what could be a zweihander or a ruler. Another hunched over as its arms sharpened into blades thrumming with barely contained violence.

Were the specters regaining their forms from before they were dragged into the flag? Zac somewhat felt that this was moving in the wrong direction. The process was only partly completed before they were pulled back into the flag. Zac only managed to confirm that their weak strand of fate hadn’t been altered before another set of wraiths was brought out.

The second bolt descended. Its intense fury forced Zac to take a step back before Tavza isolated their surroundings with an Abyssal domain. Three of the wraiths couldn’t endure this time, and small scorch marks appeared across the flag. The main part of the tribulation had still entered the flag’s hidden world, and the heretical tool struggled to endure the punishment.

The fallen wraiths were lost forever. Their forms scattered, and their last shreds of providence were returned to the cosmos. Oddly enough, the clouds seemed to grow even angrier from the offering. It briefly felt as though all air had been sucked out of the chasm before a third and final tribulation fell. Zac was sure it was the last because the pitch-black clouds had exhausted themselves to call down a few slivers of the Four Desolates.

‘It’s fine!’

The voice entered Zac’s mind just as he seriously started to consider whether he needed to intervene. Even a mixed lightning bolt like the one rushing down the chasm went far beyond the conventional punishment of the Heavenly Dao. Still, Zac had told Ogras all about his experiences with Law-imbued tribulations. Seeing as he remained confident, Zac could only respect his friend’s wishes.

The conviction held for less than a second.

“What in the world…” Zac muttered with confusion as a huge figure emerged from the banner.

The enormous goblin surrounded by nine elite specters undeniably looked like a supersized version of K’Rav, yet Zac could tell there was something wrong. The spirit only matched in form, while demeanor and energy fluctuations had too many problems to count. It was a mottled mixture of shadows and dreams, where each distinct aura corresponded to a powerful beast in Zac’s memories.

The goblin had taken on the bloodlines of Ogras’ [Spiritlock Physique] somehow, and it wasn’t clear if it actually was the demon himself who made up the nucleus. The spirit’s core spirituality was drenched in Avīci’s gloom. It shifted between K’Rav and Ogras, between truths and falsehoods.

Between alive and dead.

The Law-imbued lightning bolt descended before Zac could make sense of the situation. A part in the back of Zac’s mind noted that the chasm’s ability to weaken the Four Desolates was significantly weaker than its resistance against the Heavenly Dao. For Zac, who had to face lightning made purely from Law, breaking through to Peak Hegemony here would provide almost no benefits.

Zac’s main concern was whether the K’Rav-Ogras chimera could endure the Four Desolates, or whether surviving it was a good thing. Ogras’ true body had entered a catatonic state since the tribulation began. His destiny was linked to the flag in ways that went beyond Zac’s connection to his spirit tools, to the point Zac suspected Ogras had to bear part of its punishment.

The lightning poured into the chimeral goblin, and Zac helplessly watched as waves of extinction swept through its body. The Cosmos tried to take back what had been stolen, and pieces of the spirit were constantly erased. However, Ogras had his own means of survival. Truths and falsehoods kept inverting, and life was seized through death.

New parts appeared and were destroyed in a continuous cycle. The specters chosen to bear some of the punishment lacked such means. One by one, they crumbled until only one remained. A flock of fireflies made from shadows surrounded the specter. One by one, they sacrificed themselves to protect their master by taking on some of the punishment.

It was a common heretical method to spread tribulation onto others, except the fireflies were clearly part of the specter in its current state. It was off, cutting pieces of its flesh to protect its core, and it worked. The lightning was exhausted shortly before the ghost reached a point of no return.

A massive surge of energy poured up from the ground, casting the specter anew. Zac even felt hints of Law in the impartation. A champion to lead the other prisoners had been born. The suspicious Tool Spirit had finally managed to endure the main bolt at that point, prompting the greatest surge of endowment yet.

The size of the Hollow Court’s gift was mind-boggling. It was dozens of times larger than Zac’s, and there were even snippets of Law inside. Zac couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous at the scene. Sure, advancing his Earthly Dao was exactly what he needed right now, but he’d been standing right at the threshold for some time.

Zac’s nirvanic rebirth expedited the process and saved him some Dao Fruits. If put in terms of numerical value, it wasn’t more than 10,000 Imperial Merit. The complete overhaul of the [Shadewar Flag] and its inhabitants was on a completely different level, approaching the levels of the top-tier opportunities available for trade.

Tavza struggled with similar thoughts, judging by her conflicted expression. Was this the benefit of arriving first, or had Ogras done something else to gain the court’s recognition? Or… Zac suddenly had an idea as he recalled the spirits almost completely drained of providence. There were quite a few prisoners trapped in the flag.

Was this a matter of balance? Just how much Fate had Ogras offered up to the Eighth Hell?

Zac discarded all useless thoughts as [Verun’s Bite] appeared in his right hand. Meanwhile, Haro’s vines slithered as close as they could without drawing ire from above. The mottled spirit had endured the final punishment, and the heavenly clouds were reluctantly parting. Left was a panting spirit with a fully cohesive aura.

The bloodlines of the [Spiritlock Physique] had been melted down to their base elements and fused with not only Ogras’ path but the racial boons of the Ra’Lashar Goblins. The last part could actually be a lot more valuable than one would expect. The topic had come up one day, and Tavza’s historical tidbits had really opened his eyes.

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Most goblin subspecies were like humans, not particularly talented. Accordingly, they made up for a lack of quality with quantity. There was one significant difference between the two low-tier races, though. While humans were near-perfectly balanced jack-of-all-trades, goblins naturally gravitated toward extremes.

Usually, that only amounted to being unusually clever while physically disadvantaged or vice versa. However, there were accounts of Goblin tribes that had pushed their advantages to ridiculous levels through dedication or coincidence. Long ago, there was a Hobgoblin tribe endowed with such superhuman strength that they could grapple with Titans and Star Beasts. Some of history’s greatest inventors were also goblins.

However, such extreme specialization was a double-edged sword. It twisted their personalities, leading to highly unstable societies. The Ra’Lashar Kingdom’s end wasn’t an anomaly—it was the expected outcome. Reaching the peak of the Multiverse was almost impossible since goblins were bound to crumble from within.

For instance, the God-slaying Hobgoblins of the System’s earliest days were dumber and more aggressive than most low-grade beasts. Feeling their bloodline was the strongest in the universe, they chose to wage war against the Starbeast Alliance the second their leader became an Autarch. A single Star Beast, who had lived since before the Dark Age, swallowed their whole society in a single gulp.

It was for that very reason that even the Peak Factions in the heartlands avoided the only A-grade Goblin Empire in the Multiverse. No one wanted to be dragged into hell with them when their society inevitably went supernova.

The fact that the Ra’Lashar Goblins had gone from a mortal faction to a Peak C-grade force in a few thousand years indicated they were once one of the rare goblin tribes with extremely high potential. Having access to a fragment of the Lost Plane wasn’t enough to explain their frantic ascent.

Zac had probably benefited more from Ultom’s enlightenment than anyone else, and he understood well that its guidance had to build on something. Zac had assembled his path by breaking down top-tier manuals and studying compendiums like the [Book of Cycles]. The Ra’Lashar Kingdom was an isolated society that had to invent everything from scratch while fighting against the Lost Plane’s madness and misdirection.

It was this Ra’Lashar cleverness that Zac was afraid of spotting in Ogras’s eyes after he woke up. Tavza understood Zac’s intention and sealed the Teleportation Array with her Abyss. On such a small platform, not even Ogras would be able to avoid capture.