Chapter 809: Hubris
Zac looked down at his hands with incredulity and despair as the last embers of Oblivion dissipated in front of him. Soon, just a depression in reality remained, and a moment later there was nothing. The searing pain that ran from his head down his arms was nothing compared to the agony of defeat.
He had failed.
Sixteen months. He had saved up Oblivion Energy for sixteen months, yet that wasn’t enough. The full-powered Annihilation Sphere had only managed to tear a hole in space no larger than a hand, and it had closed so quickly that the deadly ball of destruction didn’t have time to provide access. Even if he had been gutsy enough to push through the small rip with [Abyssal Phase], he would have been torn apart before even entering it.
His thoughts had ground to a halt as his emotions ran amok, but he soon pushed down the burgeoning panic as he disappeared, transformed into an abyssal wraith. The surroundings of the death-attuned zone turned into a blur, and he crossed tens of thousands of meters in an instant. Still, that wasn’t enough, and he kept going, thankful he had plotted an escape path in case of failure.
Zac couldn’t be certain, but unleashing a three-meter tall ball of utter destruction was bound to raise some eyebrows in case anyone saw or sensed it. He wanted to be far, far away by the time anyone came to investigate. He only deactivated his skill five minutes later, at which point he had used up more than half of his Void Energy.
He returned into his corporeal form in the crown of a tree with extremely dense foliage, and he soon jumped down with a prayer mat under his arm like he had been sitting in the tree cultivating. He had passed through a good chunk of a zone in a short few minutes, something that would normally have taken him days.
It should be impossible to connect him to the now-distant event unless the Orom itself was investigating. Zac kept going for another few hours until he reached his cultivation cave where he secluded himself, his eyes and ears peeled for any response. Hours turned to days as his nerves kept fraying, but no Emerald Attendant came to take him in. Neither did his prisoner brand act up, and Zac finally let himself relax after a week had passed.
However, while it didn’t look like he was in trouble at the moment, Zac found himself gazing out from the window he had carved inside the dead tree, his mind bereft of purpose and direction. This was supposed to be it. He had spent the last four months squeezing everything he could from this place, from gathering all kinds of treasures to furiously sparring with all kinds of elders.
It was to the point that he had raised some eyebrows and started some rumors, and he had almost been drowned in piles of fate tokens. He had known that his actions were a bit suspicious, but he couldn’t help himself with so many treasures available all around him. Now, it was all for nothing, and he found himself stuck in this place after acting so mysterious. It felt like a thousand eyes were trained on the tree he hid inside.
He had already spent eighteen months in the Orom World, far longer than what he had expected or planned. Yet he didn’t find himself any closer to escaping now than he did when he just arrived. If anything, he felt further away from returning to Earth than ever, as one escape plan after another had fallen through. Now, he wasn’t even certain what to do. His bloodline wasn’t enough, and not even the remnants could pave the way to freedom.
Should he try getting relegated and hope there were some weaknesses to exploit over there? No, those people were even more tightly controlled than the cultivators of Orom World. He would only be sending himself there to suffer. Zac desperately searched for solutions, but he hadn’t managed to come up with anything over the last week, let alone now. He was stuck.
Despair threatened to swallow Zac whole as he imagined himself forced into desperate cultivation, struggling to keep up with his odd constitution until he finally succumbed as so many had before him. Until now, he had somewhat considered himself above those around him, gifted with supreme fate. This might have been a prison for others, but for him, it was just an opportunity.
The hubris.
No! Zac shook his head as his abyssal eyes regained their clarity. He refused to give up. If the force of the Annihilation Sphere had been too weak, then he simply needed to boost it. If he increased the output tenfold, the spatial tear should be bigger and more stable. He simply needed to strengthen his soul and his Dao to make it happen.
It might take a while to push his Fragment of the Coffin to become a Branch of Death, but he was confident he could accomplish that in this place, even without compromising his path. If that wasn’t enough, he would push his Branch of Death and the Branch of the War Axe to the middle stage, turning the Daos into even more powerful vessels to form the Annihilation Spheres.
Perhaps he could improve the process of forming the outburst, focusing its power with the help of his empowered soul. Until now, he had always just pushed two streams of Dao into the pathways on his shoulders, but there was perhaps more he could do. For example, what if he created specific braids to empower the streams? Perhaps even Dao Arrays?
The more Zac thought about it, the more his hope was rekindled. Perhaps there were some treasures or methods that would allow the incorporeal form of [Abyssal Phase] to survive inside the annihilation sphere long enough to escape. This wasn’t the end; it was just the beginning.
If eighteen months wasn’t enough to escape, he’d cultivate for three years. If that failed, then ten. He wouldn’t stop pushing himself in his pursuit of freedom until the Orom ripped him apart. Even then, he’d at least try to go out with a bang, damaging the big bastard or killing its descendants. Perhaps he could detonate the remnants in his head, creating one final blast of chaos upon his demise.
For now, Zac figured he’d avoid using his Draugr side for a while just in case, and he transformed back into his human form before emerging from the cultivation tree he had used as one of his home bases over the past year. He didn’t dismantle the arrays that shielded it, but he did take out a warning array before leaving.
It was a simple array that would transmit a signal to a daughter-array in his Cosmos Sack in case anyone forced its way into the tree. From there, Zac walked toward the side of the living, passing through the forest that had almost become as familiar to him as the forest of Port Atwood. In total, he had spent roughly two-thirds of his waking time in the wilderness, constantly pushing himself to improve his combat stances.
However, he had never stayed more than a month in the wilderness each time, sometimes just a week or two. In-between, he had traveled across the Orom World, sparring against dozens of different Hegemons or being imparted some general knowledge. Finally, he had set up two rudimentary cultivation caves, one for each persona, where he digested the insights before heading out again.
Zac looked around with confusion until he spotted the mysterious stone on top of the altar. It was just sitting on top of an embroidered pillow, but a moment late it rose into the air as the shimmering body of Ubo congealed.
“It’s eye-opening,” Zac agreed as he looked at the meticulously designed cave. “There are truths hidden in this arrangement.”
“There are truths hidden in everything,” Ubo countered. “But you are correct. Every item and building in this cave are part of a formation I created to imprint my path on my surroundings. This way, I am never led astray while meditating. I’m not as powerful as those at the peak in this cage, those who are able to subvert the will of the Orom World and rebuff the subliminal messages.”
The next moment, Ubo appeared at the foot of the altar, and it conjured a table along with some spiritual fruits.
“If my memory serves, roughly two years have passed since your arrival,” Ubo said after the two sat down. “Do you feel confident about the three-year shake-up?”
“It should be fine,” Zac slowly said. “I read you need 15,000 points on average to pass at the E-grade. I’ve already passed that, and I still have time to make more progress.”
“Not bad,” Ubo nodded. “But don’t get complacent. You should have read some of the records.”
“It’s hard to believe,” Zac muttered with a shake of his head. “How could someone at the E-grade gather more than 100,000 Contribution Points in three years?”
The current record at the E-grade was set two million years ago, where a woman called Jala Evermyre gained 118,235 Contribution Points before the 3-year deadline. Even forming a Dao Branch was only worth a couple of thousand Contribution Points. To pass 100,000 in three years, she must have not only gained multiple advanced-stage Dao breakthroughs, but also practiced some other highly valued methods like soul cultivation or bloodline evolutions.
Even then, Zac’s performance wasn’t anything to scoff at. He had already gained over 35,000 Contribution Points since arriving in the Orom World, making him pretty much safe from the 3-year culling. And that was without even aiming to maximize his Contribution Points. He was confident that he would be able to gain quite a bit more over the next year as well, as long as he didn’t get stuck on some bottleneck.
“Well, that particular lady only stayed for four years before leaving. The Orom World also entered a 20-year weakened state around the same time, so most assume someone in her family took issue with their descendant being caught,” Ubo snorted. “So what brings you here today?”
“I encountered a bit of a setback recently,” Zac sighed. “I figured I would stretch my legs and clear my head for a bit.”
“Setbacks are part of cultivation. I once fell into a spatial crack that threw me into a corrupted inheritance trial. Took me 800 years to break out,” Ubo laughed. “Setbacks can be as valuable as epiphanies, provided you make the most of it. Tell me, what are you planning on doing next?”
Zac felt that the atmosphere had shifted a bit, like there was some sort of hidden implication to the elemental’s question.
“Well, I’ll keep training and then try again,” Zac eventually said after a while. “I don’t like to back down after having decided on something.”
“Ha!” Ubo laughed. “I guess the Lord was right.”
“What?” Zac blurted with a sinking feeling in his chest.
Had someone exposed him, connecting his two identities and his escape attempt? Zac immediately got ready to fight or escape, but what was the point even if he managed to kill the elemental in front of him? There was still this anonymous Lord who could turn him in at any time. Or was the Lord the Orom?
Zac frantically tried to figure out what to do, but his mind froze when he saw a familiar object appear above Ubo’s hand.
“The Lord contacted me half a year ago. He told me that you would visit me soon,” the elemental explained. “It was he who instructed me to ask you about your plans, and present this thing in case your answer was to his satisfaction.”
Zac barely heard the elemental’s words, his eyes glued to the token hovering in the air.
“Perennial Vastness...”