Chapter 832: Mounting Threat

Chapter 832: Mounting Threat

The lightning-scorched tower had finally crumbled, unable to withstand time and the madness of its master. In the rubble, she sat, her heart burning with hatred and her hands covered in ash. Hatred against what, she no longer remembered. The ashes of whom, she could no longer recall. She had given it all up for power.

Yet now, only emptiness remained.

Zac barely had time to digest the miserable scene before he was whisked away to another, witnessing outbursts of madness and despair. It was just like his previous encounters, with one worrying difference. This time, it all felt so real. Before, the scenes had been visceral, almost to the point they could leave a mark on his mind. But now, it was so much more.

His soul was far superior compared to when he last absorbed a remnant, yet he found himself struggling to hold on to his sanity as the Splinter of Oblivion unleashed its manic obsession. The parasitic consciousness hidden within the crystal had come out in full force, and doubts kept invading Zac’s path.

He had seen his absorbing these things as a necessary evil until now, a risky gamble to more quickly gain power. But what if he had unknowingly already fallen to the ploy of the remnants, blindly grasping for more when his true self should have long realized something was wrong? The moment he had learned of the third set, he had not even hesitated when risking his life to seize them – even when he already held the means of escape through the Perennial Vastness Token.

Why?

He had always known he was a pawn in someone’s game, be it the System’s or the remnants themselves. Yet he had never questioned their end game, and just figured he’d tide it out and walk away a stronger man. Why? Was that how a resource was used? No, it was squeezed of all its benefits and discarded before the master went looking for the next useful idiot to exploit.

Doubts, hesitation, and regrets kept rising to the surface, even rehashing his failures during the earliest months of the integration. Knowing that it was the result of absorbing the remnant didn’t help either. If anything it added another layer of torture – Zac knew he was being tricked into this state, yet he couldn’t break it, which only further fed into the insecurities he’d gained from being peppered by the visions.

Trying to logically dispel his doubts didn’t help either – he wasn’t dealing with something that could be reasoned with. Reiterating the fact that there was nothing he could have done for his father, that he returned as quickly as possible to Greenworth, didn’t allay the guilt at all. The misery threatened to consume him like he was drowning.

Soon enough, Zac barely registered the visions even if they kept going, stuck in his own private hell instead. If only he could quench all these thoughts. Extinguish everything.

The thought cut through his distress like a knife, but warning bells immediately went off. The unwelcome thought had properly woken him up, and he realized just how dangerous a situation he had been in just now. He was standing right at the precipice – if he gave in to that feeling, Oblivion, or rather that ancient consciousness, would consume him.

Zac knew the situation was bad, but he still didn’t try to remember and regain that tranquil state he had enjoyed during Three Virtues’ trial, where nothing could affect him. Neither did he break open his self-imposed seal on the [Boundless Vajra Sublimation] to recite the heart-calming sutras it contained.

That was not his path.

Instead, he focused on his goals rather than his failures, holding onto the vision of Thea being lifted into the air by his mother, of Kenzie being whisked away. The focus wasn’t that he couldn’t protect them – how could he against someone like Leandra Kayar-Elu? Instead, he focused on how his sister needed to be rescued and Thea needed to be avenged.

He focused on Earth being like a small raft about to be flung out into a raging ocean as the Zecia Sector was about to be embroiled in war. Of Ogras and Billy being stuck in some pocket of space, their fate unknown after having risked their lives to save his sister and Earth. There were so many people he owed, so many things he needed to accomplish. He refused to get pushed down by his mistakes or bogged down by hesitation. He would keep moving forward, and some fractured spirit from a bygone era would never be able to change that fact.

Neither would he drink the poisonous waters of the Dharma to quench his thirst – he had faith that he would be able to accomplish his goals without their aid. Eventually, Zac took a shuddering breath as he opened his eyes. He was back in his own body, and time was starting to start up again.

That was way too close.

Zac knew he had been overconfident. He had believed that after surviving the Calamity A’Zu warned of and then performing a perfect reincarnation, absorbing the third set of remnants would proceed without a snag. But if one could survive the remnants just by cultivating one’s soul, then why did everyone in the vision succumb sooner or later?

It had become painfully clear that a powerful soul wasn’t enough to deal with the madness hidden within the Splinter of Oblivion. Its energy couldn’t just pollute his soul – its attack on Zac’s heart was just as formidable, and harder to both notice and defend against.

A wave of darkness flooded out from his hands, utterly drenching the area in impenetrable gloom. The scene only lasted for less than a second before the energy disappeared with a crackling sound, prompting a small tempest as air rushed to fill the vacuum the attack created. Left behind was only a cracked glass cage inside a ten-meter crater, and powerful tendrils of pure Creation radiated out from the fractures.

The cage was on the verge of breaking, so Zac jumped down into the hole and seized the remnant the moment the seal shattered ignoring the bleeding gashes as he gripped the Shard of Creation. A primordial clap of thunder joined the chaotic scene above, but Zac didn’t have time to see whether the System had arrived – the visions had claimed him once more.

Once more, Zac became an unwilling compatriot to predecessors who had become mixed up with the Shards of Creation. Over and over, he witnessed scenes of futile resistance followed by inevitable tragedy. Most of those who got themselves mixed up with the Spark of Creation had done so not out of greed or megalomania, but out of a desire to help.

To protect their companions, to tame inhospitable surroundings – to make the impossible possible, and seize an opportunity for survival. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the best outcomes in the visions were those who managed to kill themselves before they destroyed around them as their desires drove them insane.

Yet Zac was different – he could feel it. He had witnessed how he was chosen by fate, walking off with rich rewards in situations where anyone else would have died. Where these people failed, he would prosper. He only needed to grasp the power within and subvert the Heavens themselves. He just-

Zac shuddered and forcibly quelled the mad impulses and rampant hubris that had spread to the core of his very being. He had been prepared for his heart to be attacked after the previous encounter, yet he almost found himself failing right out the gates. Once more, he held onto his path, his goals – but more importantly, he held onto himself.

It was true that he had his unique strengths, but being a genius didn’t matter in the multiverse. Only power mattered. So what if he was stronger than most E-grade cultivators? Any late Hegemon like Traprandar or Olgoroth could squash him like a bug on the outside when he didn’t have the prison brand to protect him. Even Early Hegemons would be hard for him to take down if they possessed powerful-enough War Regalia.

So what was there to be proud of?

Everyone who had reached the later stages of cultivation had overcome innumerable challenges, succeeding where trillions failed. He couldn’t get complacent, thinking that some D-grade remnant would allow him to bring about earthshattering changes. It was better to rely on himself, to progress one step at a time until he held true power.

Soon enough, he was back in his own body, and his mind screamed of danger as he felt the Shard of Creation making a beeline for the trapped splinter. Above, thick lightning clouds were gathering, pushing away the flames and lotus petals alike. However, Zac’s eyes thinned when he saw the strings of Buddhist scripture rising toward the churning clouds.

Were Three Virtues trying to siphon power from the System itself?

Zac had no time to bother about the plans of the Sangha, and it was not like the clouds above were tribulation clouds that could benefit him. He had played with the idea of using these lightning bolts to temper himself as he had with the Tribulation Lightning, but remembering Uona’s end, he wouldn’t dare try something like that.

At least not before he became a Hegemon.

The two remnants inside his body were going all out, and it felt like their energy reserves easily surpassed the two he had picked up inside the Twilight Ocean. Was it because they had been sealed all this time, accumulating energy while the previous set had been free to unleash waves of destruction on their surroundings?

Zac didn’t mind – any extra energy was a welcome addition. Zac had even more to spare, and a snap echoed out in his mind as he forced open the gates to his remnant prison. Four shimmering lights emerged from the hidden pocket dimension with wild abandon, joining their two brethren in a struggle for supremacy.

His soul cried as his eleven cores were drowned in waves of turbulent powers. There was no way for his mental energy to restrain all six remnants, and he didn’t know what would happen first; his aperture bursting or his soul cores being destroyed. He could only open his mental seal to his aperture, and soon enough the war spread to every corner of his body.

Zac saw how his skin shifted from opalescent splendor to oppressive gloom – all while new cracks kept appearing across his body.

The prison brand was still trying to kill him, but it was barely able to defend itself as it was engulfed in the battle between Creation and Oblivion, let alone striking out against Zac. Still, this couldn’t go on. However, Zac was already dragging torrential amounts of Mental energy, Dao, and energy from the remnants into the two pathway highways on his shoulders, as he had two times before.

Zac sensed a wave of fear emanating from the veteran remnants, but it was much too late. The process had started, and it wouldn’t end before a Glimpse of Chaos had been born.