Chapter 1181: Step of Destiny

Chapter 1181: Step of Destiny

The unfettered storm raged within Zac's quantum space. He was the universe, ripped apart and reborn in a Big Bang of his own making. The next minutes would decide whether the road that led him here was paved with discernment or hubris. The calamitous mayhem mostly adhered to his path, but there were hundreds of discordant notes in the mixdisarray brought from the core's imperfections.

His Cosmic Core may have been High Quality in terms of qualifications, but there were still weaknesses to its makeup. Even he faced the unavoidable problem of incompatibility brought about by using external materials to forge his core. These hidden daggers of heterogeneity were now trying to impose their beliefs on the universe. If left unchecked, they would destroy what he'd created with blood, sweat, and tears. He wouldn't let it.

His first set of Mental Tendrils had already been shredded, so he conjured a second one. Many were destroyed before they even reached his Duplicity Core because of the energies ravaging his body. Each loss felt like a cut on his soul. A few fared marginally better and successfully entered the quantum space. Where the destructive forces of dimensional genesis waited.

A miserable cycle of destruction and reformation began, where Zac desperately tried to connect his Dao and Mental Energy with the struggling barrier to bolster its defenses. With every defeat, Zac's resources dwindled while the opposition grew fiercer. Zac's plight only worsened when the first pieces of his shattered core crashed into the barrier.

The array had already shown incredible resilience withstanding the energy shockwaves. However, it simply wasn't capable of dealing with the monstrous force released from Zac's Trinity Core. Cracks multiplied and spread, worsening the punishment Zac had to bear. Blood and ichor fell like rain, to the point Zac had to keep his bodies together with willpower and energy. Any other mortal would already have died from the onslaught.Updated from novelbIn.(c)om

The situation far exceeded Zac's expectations, but treacherous thoughts and seeds of fear were strangled and replaced with determination and purpose. So what if his ignition surpassed any recordings or estimates he'd seen? It only proved his path was one aimed at the peak. And like many times before, he'd prove he had the qualifications to tread this path of supremacy.

Zac roared as Hidden Nodes went into overdrive, and space buckled when he unleashed his constitutions to their limits. Human skin turned resplendent gold as grievous wounds wriggled and closed, and archaic scripts echoing the bottomless darkness of the Abyss covered his Draugr body. The unbreakable strength and conviction of the Vanguard joined the enduring composure of the immutable Void Vajra to turn him into an everlasting kingdom.

Abyssal ponds and lifegiving hurricanes flooded his bodies with primal power, generating an immense pressure. Errant streaks of spirituality were caught and pushed back into the quantum space, and the mayhem was corralled into a retreat. Following in the wake of the rallied defenses was a storm of Dao-Empowered Mental Energy.

Zac knew grit and determination alone couldn't tide him through this calamity. It would, however, suppress the ignition long enough to connect with the Core Formation Barrier. Stabilizing it would be the first step in creating a stronghold that would let him mount a crusade of reclamation on the quantum space.

Dao descended on failing runes like rain replenishing parched lands. The essence of Zac's Life, Death, and Conflict strengthened and subtly reformed the shield, allowing it to better combat the ignition's matching energy signature. The tides were finally turning.

A tremendous clap of thunder shook the Temporal Chamber, disrupting the energy streams supplying the Core Formation Arrays. The sudden blast was like a hammer to Zac's consciousness, almost forcing his soul out of his Soul Aperture. The connection with the Core Formation Array was cut, and dozens of flickering runes were destroyed when the array failed to supply the necessary energy.

Zac came to and desperately slapped a talisman against his chest, generating an immense gravitational force. Bones snapped, and new imperfections were introduced into the unstable storm. However, it was enough to temporarily force back the escaping energy before he reached a point of no return.

Wrath matching his attacker burned in Zac's eyes as he glared at the ceiling. It felt as though his stare pierced time and space to gaze upon the storm gathering abovea Heavenly Tribulation, something that shouldn't appear when stepping into Middle Hegemony.

The why didn't matter. He'd been targeted, and the Heavens weren't done with him yet. The animosity almost felt personal, and the timing ruined the ace he'd prepared. It wasn't easy to ignite his constitutions to that level, and it cost huge amounts of Vigor. Recreating the effect in the short run was impossible, and both barrier and spiritual storm were in a worse state than before.

Zac gritted his teeth as fury almost overcame reason. The burning anger helped rouse his defenses and somewhat stabilize the situation, but it wasn't enough. Zac's mind moved a mile a minute as he went over plans and contingencies, but none of them was suitable. How could he possibly have expected a tribulation to appear, especially when his breakthrough had barely started?

The world had gone insane, so he would embrace the madness.

A primal axe burning with desire to break the chains of fate and tear the Heavenly veil appeared in a hand scarred by endless slaughter. The darkness grew deeper atop the other platform as a gleaming edge released a keening cry filled with such inviolable command neither Dao nor destiny could escape.

Together, they pointed at the Heavens in an undisguised challenge. The Heavens wanted to stop his ascent? It could try. A second clap of thunder answered, resounding like a war drum heralding the primordial forces of abrogation.

It was a stay of execution.

Zac had no idea how long the protection would last, so he was determined to make every second count. The further he got with his breakthrough, the better he would be positioned when all hell broke loose. However, a screen appeared just as he was about to resume his work.

The First Step of Destiny (Void Road): Form a High-quality Middle D-grade Cosmic Core of the Void Road. Reward: - (0/1) [17:00:00:00]

The sudden quest came with both answers and questions. Most importantly, the System had given him a seventeen-day deadline. It was decidedly less than what his subspace could survive, so there had to be something else behind the specific time. Seventeen days for seventeen Dao Peaks? Even Zac felt the pressure from such a tight schedule. His estimates put him at over 20 days to reforge and reassemble his core, and that was before all these problems cropped up.

The Void Road was the path he chose for himself when rejecting the Imperial and Heavenly Destiny in the Tribulation Throne. It was the source of his only upgradeable Limited Title, but he would have to be a fool not to understand it held deeper implications. Now, the term had become a quest type, clarifying the System's stance on the matter. It wanted to see where his road led.

The quest had no reward, though protecting him from the Heavens could be considered a reward of its own. Passing it would keep things going, and it was possible the next quest would come with the title upgrade or other benefits.

The quest also provided an important clue to the root of Heaven's sudden antipathy. It no longer seemed as though the Kayar-Elu and their Heaven-defying experiments were to blame. At least not in the way he previously thought. He'd believed his Duplicity Core was what triggered the unnaturally fierce Tribulation Lightning when stepping into Hegemony.

That may be part of it, but his Technocrat Heritage had been almost completely silent this time. The only answer Zac could think of was his bloodline, or rather his cultivation of the Void. His tribulations had always been more powerful than the norm because of his heavy foundations. Still, it was only after officially integrating Void into his path that the tribulations felt like no-holds attempts at extermination.

Void and Dao couldn't coexist, so it would make sense if the Heavens wanted to purge his existence to restore balance. If his theory was correct, Zac was in trouble. Utilizing the Void wasn't just a temporary stopgap to get his core blueprint to work. It had become the glue that held his path together, and his bloodline breakthrough had opened new ways to weave the Void into his cultivation.

He was still far from Monarchy and forming a real Inner World, but seeing the embryonic subspace confirmed Zac's beliefs the Void was there to stay. Did that mean the Heavens would come knocking every time he broke through, where the tribulations far surpassed what was normal? This time, the System came to his aid, but could he put his fate in the System's hands?

Absolutely not.

Zac shook his head, discarding any distracting thoughts as he wholeheartedly focused on his quantum space. He would have to survive this tribulation before having the qualifications to worry about the future. He had seventeen days, and Heaven's lingering presence indicated the System wouldn't completely keep it at bay.

Order had been restored in his subspace thanks to his daredevil gambit. Thousands of shrapnel pieces formed dozens of interlocked asteroid belts, and their trajectories controlled the immense amounts of energy that still filled the subspace. The cycle was stable, though the unnaturally high energy density created eruptions that rocked the shielding. That much was well within bounds.

The next step was originally to have the Core Formation Array shift from solely defending to also infusing his subspace with energy. There was no point in doing so for the next few days now. Perhaps at all, considering the Core Formation Array wasn't the only source of energy.

His body was instinctively nourishing the subspace with Dao. In addition, energy was being funneled into the quantum space directly by the Cosmos. The subspace was like a true universe, seemingly drawing energy and truth out of thin air. In reality, it came from other dimensions and lower realms.

Zac ate a handful of pills to nourish his damaged soul and heal his physical wounds. He was exhausted, yet he formed a Dao Braid and delved further into the subspace than he had gone before. The tendril continued unimpeded, thanks to Zac's intuitive understanding of the energy flow, until it reached the subspace's center.

The area was shrouded by a layer of energy so dense it had almost become liquid. Zac pierced the veil, breathing out in relief upon finding what he was looking forhis Core Nucleus, scarred and disfigured from withstanding the ignition. Despite its wretched appearance, it was whole, functional, and retaining most of its spirituality. A bloody grin spread across Zac's faces, and the devastation around him no longer seemed so bad.

Many of his plans were out the window, but this part had worked out just fine.