Chapter 172: Balance

Chapter 172: Balance

A horrifying pressure spread out from Zac as he stepped forward with [Veruns Bite] in his hands. The previously rowdy squad from Perseverance didnt have time to react before he was upon them. A horizontal swing of [Chop] ripped through most of the group, crushing hastily erected defenses like dry twigs.

Attack! the voice from earlier frantically cried, no longer having any joviality in it.

However, it was to no avail as a dozen glittering leaves whirled around Zac as he methodically cut down everything. Spells and bullets flew through the night, but the defensive skill of Zac proved its worth as the attacks were continuously blocked. The few that snuck by couldnt really hurt Zac either, as between his monstrous Endurance and E-Grade robes he was nigh-invulnerable to ordinary attacks.

A car door slammed and an engine started, clearly indicating someone had quickly grown tired of the fight. Zac only shook his head with some regret, and detached his fractal edge, letting it cut the military vehicle and its driver in half. He would actually already have finished the fight if it wasnt for the fact that he didnt want to damage the vehicles.

They would be a great asset to his town, as he didnt have many good vehicles at the moment. With some inscriptions and the engine modifications, they would be great tools for his force to explore and traverse the main continent in the future. After all it seemed the Creators wouldnt sell any land vehicles. The next step after the ships would be the flying spiritual tools, but that was extremely far off.

There were roughly thirty people who were part of the ambush, but the fight only lasted for less than a minute before the night once again was blanketed in deathly silence. Corpses were strewn all over, some as far as a few hundred meters away from the blockade. After the initial rampage a few tried to flee, but between [Loamwalker] and the fractal edge projectiles Zac shot out none survived.

However, the battle wasnt completely without consequence, as Zac was panting with a pallid face. He tried to end it as quickly as possible in order to not let his wound go out of control again, but it was no stopping it as a horrible pain spread through his side.

Worse yet, it started to absorb miasma as well. It seemed like something in the wound almost had turned into a small whirlpool, slowly rotating while drawing in the deathly energy in the atmosphere. Luckily the Dao of Trees blocked out a good chunk of it, forming a natural barrier.

After a brief hesitation he chose not to head out of the Dead Zone. Between the Cleansing Pill he ate back on the island, the Purifiers efforts, and his Dao, it would take weeks before the concentration of miasma reached the levels of concentration it had right at the beginning. Besides, the wound calmed down after a while the last time, so hopefully the same would happen again.

Still, he didnt wish to remain at the scene of the battle. It looked like only the leader who spoke in the beginning had a semblance of power, whereas the others were normal foot soldiers. Most used machine guns rather than skills, showing that their power was limited. The huge fireball that almost blasted him up on the wall of Perseverance was still fresh in his mind. He wasnt in the mood to take one of those blasts at the moment, as the leaves wouldnt do much against such an attack.

Zac therefore quickly collected all the vehicles as in greatest cosmos sack, gaining 10 military jeeps. After a brief hesitation, he also threw in the bodies of all the men as well, not wanting to leave them to give clues of what happened here. He wanted to leave the so-called Lord Perseverance with some doubt, and if he was smart hed cut his losses.

He was tired, but before sleeping hed give it a chance. He took out a knife hed prepared for just this occasion, along with some bandages and a flashlight. Next he took off all his clothes on his torso, displaying the wound out in the cold air.

It truly looked ghastly, a black hole with tendrils spreading out from it. After a brief touch it didnt feel hot like an infection, but rather a numbing cold. This much was the same as before, but one startling change had taken place. The wound was now slowly pusling, as though it had a heartbeat of its own.

The disgusting sight only reaffirmed Zacs decision, and with a somber expression he disinfected the knife before he gingerly cut into his flesh right outside the core of the wound. His plan was to quickly cut out the center, and then slowly heal the tendrils after the main part of the wound was gone.

However, he only managed to cut a centimeter into his body before a wave of pain unlike anything hed felt before flooded his mind, overloading his system. Zac had no way to produce any semblance of a response as his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed back against the tree unconscious.

The suns were already quite high in the sky when Zac woke up again with a start, and he was surprised to see that hed actually slept for 5 hours. It was far longer compared to the two to three hours he usually slept, and guessed it was since he wasnt in great condition.

After making sure nothing in his surroundings was amiss he quickly looked down at his wound, and breathed in relief that his little experiment didnt seem to have made anything worse. The black core was still slowly pulsating, but it hadnt spread out while he was knocked out.

A quick internal check also showed that his body didnt contain any more miasma compared to earlier. In fact, it almost seemed there were less of it than before in his body. However, Zac was worried to see that small amounts of miasma were still entering him. As he dressed again he pondered on his next step.

He was truly walking along blind, not knowing what the hell the thing in his body was. It was quite unfortunate that neither Calrin nor Ogras could figure anything out. The undead faction was extremely vast with tens of thousands of classes and means, and there was no way they could find out exactly what hed been struck by.

It also was quite hard for the gnome to buy anything used for purifying the miasma. The undead empire saw those types of pills as a direct affront to their faction, and that selling those types of things an attack on them. The pills themselves werent hard to make, but few were willing to draw the undeads ire for the limited revenue that came with the purifying pills.

Zac sighed and rested his head back against the large tree again, closing his eyes. It truly was a marvelous specimen, surviving in this harsh climate. The suns were obscured, and the energy in the atmosphere was corrupted, yet the tree pushed forward, not giving up. Zac thought of trying to glean any hints from it, and entered a meditative state as he tried to understand what the tree actually was doing.

The hours passed and soon the small Dao field he had erected around his wound started to change. Before it was like a cloud that blocked miasma from entering the wound, but since the cloud was porous some snuck through. However, the cloud started to transform, turning into a small whirlpool as well, moving the opposite direction from the whirl in his wound.