Chapter 791: Leviathan
The final Twilight Ascent had been far more dangerous than the previous ones, especially considering the fallout. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been enough for the System to deem it necessary to award Zac another limited title slot or title permanence. But it had at least adjusted the reward.
Zac had seen historical examples of status screens in his missives, and the first position in the E-grade Twilight Ascent would generally provide between 6% and 10% attributes, along with a maximum of 8% effectiveness. Generally, the slaughter-based trials provided the highest rewards, which wasn’t a surprise considering the System’s predilection for carnage.
His special version far surpassed the historical records even if it technically was a Dao-based trail, and it was way better compared to the titles that he had gathered so far. Seeing the massive boost the new title provided, Zac doubted he would be able to find anything better in the short run.
Limited Titles would get better and better for every grade, eventually far outstripping the normal ones. Even then, the Limited Titles you could gain in the D-grade rarely reached a boost of 15% to any attributes from what Zac had heard. So it was an extremely welcome addition, and Zac once more opened his status screen, partly out of boredom.
Name
Zachary Atwood
Level
123
Class
[E-Epic] Edge of Arcadia
Race
[D] Human – Void Emperor (Corrupted)
Alignment
[Earth] Port Atwood – Planetary Lord
Titles
Born for Carnage, Ultimate Reaper, Luck of the Draw, Giantsbane, Disciple of David, Overpowered, Slayer of Leviathans, Adventurer, Demon Slayer I, Full of Class, Rarified Being, Trailblazer, Child of Dao, The Big 500, Planetary Aegis, One Against Many, Butcher, Progenitor Noblesse, Duplicity Core, Apex Hunter, Heaven’s Chosen, Scion of Dao, Omnidextrous, Eastern Trigram Hunt – 1st, Tyrannic Force, Achievement Hunter, The First Step, Promising Specialist, Tower of Eternity – 8th Floor, Heaven’s Triumvirate, Fated, Peak Power, Sovereign-Select, Frontrunner, Apex Progenitor, Pathstrider, Runebinder, Runic Erudition, Grand Fate
Limited Titles
Tower of Eternity Sector All-Star – 14th, Equanimity, Heart of Fire, Big Axe Gladiator, The Final Twilight
Dao
Branch of the War Axe – Early, Fragment of the Coffin – Peak, Fragment of the Bodhi – Peak
Core
[E] Duplicity
Strength
12709 [Increase: 123%. Efficiency: 287%]
Dexterity
5097 [Increase: 88%. Efficiency: 206%]
Endurance
8740 [Increase: 116,5%. Efficiency: 275%]
Meanwhile, [Love’s Bond] had turned unresponsive since he had fed it the mysterious egg. He would perhaps be able to force it into its shield form, but he would rather not unless absolutely necessary. Soon enough, the three Leviathan’s opened a huge gate and entered together, and Zac’s heart trembled as he felt the tremendous waves of Spatial Dao on the other side.
This was it.
A moment later, his bubble passed through. A sudden burst of radiance forced Zac to cover his eyes for a second, and he realized they should have entered in a proper dimension this time around. However, any thoughts on their location were thrown to the back of his mind as he saw what the river of bubbles was flying toward.
He had been naïve. Those little worms that had dragged him here weren’t fit to be called Leviathans. The thing in front of him was a true Leviathan. It almost felt like his mind was breaking from estimating just how large this beast was, but one thing was for sure; it was not just the size of a planet like Earth, it even dwarfed some of the continental plates that made the Twilight Harbor.
It looked quite similar to the Space Fish that had taken him here, but this ancestor had clearly undergone a series of bloodline evolutions compared to Zac’s chaperone. The difference wasn’t just like the difference between Vul, the Barghest Alpha, and its brethren. It was like the difference between a dragon and a small lizard.
Looking at the Leviathan felt like looking at the Laws of space. A lazy wave from any one of its innumerable tentacles caused massive cracks in space, and the sail-like fin on its back was massive enough to blot out the Heavens themselves. A nebula churned around it, almost looking like cosmic waters.
Its body was also covered in huge scripts that almost seemed to be alive. Together, they formed some sort of natural formation, one that was far beyond his scope of understanding.
Zac had never seen anything like this before, not even in his Dao visions. He knew there were impossibly large beasts wandering the endless Multiverse, but it was another thing entirely to be placed in front of one. As for its power, it was definitely not just the equivalent of a Monarch.
This was a proper Primordial Beast, one that emitted a noticeably stronger aura compared to the Havarok Autarch he saw the other day, though it still didn’t quite reach the level of Be’Zi or her husband. Why was something like this here in the frontier?
Or had he actually left the frontier already, dragged to another sector entirely by the Space Fish?
A flash of light dragged Zac out of his thoughts and his eyes away from the terrifying being he was floating toward, just in time to see his guide disappear in a puff of spatial energy. Only then did he properly take in the situation, and his heart sunk even further. His group captives were just the latest arrivals.
There were innumerable bubbles all around the behemoth. Another vortex appeared in the distance, and yet another beast chaperone came dragging a few hundred bubbles. Just like the one that had taken him here, the beast disappeared in a spatial ripple the moment it emerged, leaving its captives to their fate.
Were the smaller beasts living inside their parent? Or were they just clones?
Even without a beast to guide them, the spheres kept moving in an orderly fashion. But Zac’s horror only mounted when he realized where he was heading; the Leviathan’s gaping maw. It was no wonder the smaller beasts hadn’t eaten any more captives as they traveled. They didn’t dare steal their leader’s dinner.
Zac’s heart beat like a drum as he scrambled for a way to survive. He had hoped that he had been captured to become an indentured worker or something considering he had been left alive. If that had been the case, he would have a shot at escaping by using his Void Energy. But now, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He could feel it – if he entered that impossibly large maw, his odds of survival were essentially zero.
The Leviathan’s mouth was large enough to swallow planets whole, but it wasn’t the sharp fangs that worried him. Its maw was filled with a terrifying cloud of spatial destruction, far beyond any spatial tears he had ever seen. There was no way he would survive even a second in such an environment, yet he and the other bubbles flew toward it with blazing speed.
Terror overwrote the overwhelming pain from using the power of the remnants as a storm of Dao and Mental Energy entered the two pathway highways on his shoulders, where Axe and Coffin were forced together. Luckily, the beast guarding his bubble was gone, giving him a small window of opportunity. What little Oblivion Energy he had saved up in his Soul Core was dragged out, acting as the catalyst for the Annihilation Sphere.
A small ball full of endless destruction rapidly grew between his hands, and Zac felt a burst of rage bubble in his mind. The shock along with the damage left behind by the remnants had made him susceptible to the whispers of the splinters. But Zac forcibly took control of the madness, using it to squeeze out a little bit more energy from his harried mind.
Meanwhile, he activated [Piercing Gaze] in search of any weak spot in his prison with the help of Void Energy, ignoring the small shudder that spread across the cage. Unfortunately, the sphere used concepts far beyond his understanding or scope of what his skill could decipher, so Zac could only slam his attack into a random spot on the wall with righteous indignation.
The satisfying scene of his cage cracking like a dome of glass didn’t appear. Zac was dismayed to realize there was a hidden spatial barrier between himself and the surface of his cage. It was just a thin film, yet it felt like his attack was forced to cross hundreds of miles to reach the wall.
By that point, his energy was almost completely expended. The sphere holding him captive only rippled a bit before a series of esoteric patterns suddenly appeared across its surface, joining the ones that Zac suspected were responsible for the restrictions and energy drain. Zac scrambled for other ideas, but it was helpless.
He still had access to his Void Energy, but that didn’t do him much good. His weapon was sealed inside his spatial ring, but he knew that his skills would be worthless in this situation in either case. Others had unleashed far more powerful attacks than his without any luck. The high-concept Dao inside his Annihilation Sphere had been his only hope.
There was no way that [Love’s Bond] would do any good in this situation either. More importantly, he was worried that activating skills would prompt the Leviathan to lash out at him prematurely, based on the new runes that covered his bubble. His only hope now was that his cage would break the moment it entered the huge maw of the Leviathan and that he’d survive with the help of [Void Zone] long enough to swim out of there.
However, Zac looked around with confusion as his own sphere suddenly made a turn and diverged from the others’. Almost all of the innumerable cages were dragged toward the beast’s maw, but his own joined a few thousand others that instead shot toward the huge fin on its back. It didn’t take long to figure out what differed between his own and the other spheres either; the engravings.
His own cage was covered in dense scripts thanks to using the Annihilation Sphere, as were the others who had avoided disaster. The markings weren’t identical, but they rather held varying echoes of the Dao, where Zac could sense a mix of Pure Death and Conflict on his own – the ground components of his Annihilation Sphere.
Another prison that wasn’t flying too far from him actually emitted temporal fluctuations, and Zac spotted a humanoid man sitting inside with closed eyes as though he was in the middle of meditation. Meanwhile, the bubbles which had no such unique markings things moved toward the beast’s mouth.
It didn’t look like patterns were based on cultivation strength either. He saw at least two Peak or at least High Hegemons shooting toward the mouth, both of them desperately banging on the barrier as they were dragged toward their doom. He had spotted them in the Void outside the Twilight Harbor before, and he had seen the shocking attacks they had unleashed in an attempt to escape back into the main dimension.
His eyes met one of the other’s for a moment, and he saw a chaotic mix of emotions in the Revenant’s eyes. Confusion, fear, rage and indignation. Most importantly, reluctance. Reluctance to have their path ended like this, to become food to some monstrous beast. Zac turned away, unable to look on as they were dragged into the spatial storm.
He felt so weak and helpless, but more so, he was filled with relief. The Annihilation Sphere hadn’t managed to break him out of his prison, but it looked like it had allowed him to survive the first culling. Something about the energies he had unleashed had piqued the Leviathan’s interest, saving him from a gristly end.
The question was, what was it planning?