Chapter 469: Clashing Fates (1/2)
The man who had spoken up wasn't the only one who looked at the leader with fear-induced anger, but another two of them seemed to be ready to leave then and there.
”I'll increase the compensation. Besides, he is still restrained even if he's not incapacitated. We just need to break this attack and we'll have won,” the man said.
The man looked unreconciled but he still complied, and he took out a green finger from his Spatial Tool and swallowed it. The next moment he swelled over five times in size while an enormous cauldron appeared behind him, and he launched a punch that shuddered with power toward Zac. The attack caused a cascading series of putrid explosions to rock the area, and a few unlucky cultivators who had been maimed from the fight earlier were consumed as well, turning into brittle skeletons in an instant.
The four elites followed suit, and all of them either transformed from an ultimate skill or caused an avatar to appear behind their backs. One of them seemed to be a lightning cultivator, and another summoned a beast that looked even more dangerous than Verun. The Tool Spirit roared in defiance, but it still stayed away from the five due to Zac's command and kept routing the stragglers.
Zac was a bit out of it from the increasingly intrusive screams emerging from the tattered sword, but he could still hear their discussion. He was initially confused just who these five people were, as they were of mixed races and dressed completely differently. It didn't seem like they belonged to the same force, and this notion was only reinforced when they released their ultimate skills.
From the conversation, it looked like a group of elites had decided to band together in other to incapacitate him. Zac guessed they had kept their aces in hopes that they would be able to snatch the final prize the moment he was lying within the arrays unable to even lift a finger.
The two sides clashed, and it felt like the world had frozen before cataclysmic waves of attuned energies spread in all directions, drowning the whole square in color. There was a very clear divide in the sky, with Zac's side being white with red streaks, and the other half being a mix of colors representing the five elites.
It looked like there was a stalemate taking place, but Zac knew things weren't that simple. His attack was one single wave of unadulterated power, whereas the other side was a mostly disjointed mix. It was only a matter of time before his attack would break through at which point things would go south very quickly for his enemies.
The leader of the group seemed to have understood what was going going to happen as well, and he immediately took action. However, he neither tried another counter nor tried to run away, but he rather slapped a talisman onto the back of the woman next to him, the cultivator responsible for the 'Six Directions Array'.
She disappeared in a puff, leaving the others flabbergasted.
Their side had already been on the losing end of the confrontation, and they had suddenly lost a fifth of their power along with the powerful shield protecting them. The four remaining attacks crumbled in an instant, and the half-moon seized the opportunity pushed forward with furious momentum.
One of the masters tried to run, but it seemed as though he was bogged down in a quagmire. He released a soundless scream as the half-moon bisected him, but Zac's brows furrowed when he saw that the blade actually seemed to swallow the man. The red veins crept out from the edge and latched onto the cultivator, and his body was drained in an instant.
Most of the retinues that infused the five through War Arrays met the same fate, and only the leader managed to hold on by expending a series of defensive treasures. Zac finally couldn't take the strain from holding the sword any longer, and he immediately put away the thing, causing the half-moon to disappear after releasing a wail of discontent.
Zac flashed forward the next moment and he activated the first fractal of [Verun's Bite] again, intending to end things then and there. The mob of cultivators was mostly dealt with, but as long as the man who had organized the assault was alive he wouldn't feel safe. He was in front of the leader in an instant, and his axe shone with a sanguine glow as it fell toward his head.
However, before Zac’s attack had a chance to connect a necklace lit around the man up, and Zac felt an all-consuming pain as the defensive charge of [Hatchetman’s Spirit] crumbled in an instant. His chest had been turned into a bloody mess yet again, and it was almost as bad as yesterday when he got punched by the Technocrat Captain.
Thankfully Zac still possessed the final energies that the Shard of Creation had released during its rampage, and he quickly urged it to reform his torso before he passed out. It almost looked like time went in reverse as his body reformed in an instant, but the fact that his robes were broken and tattered was proof that he had been at death's door just a second ago.
The richly dressed youth gaped in shock and dismay as Zac's axe bit into his body. The richly decked man tried to push the axehead out of his body, but Zac utterly overpowered him as he released a storm of rampant energies that turned the man's insides into a mess.
He somehow managed to stay alive, and their eyes met as the man clung to life.
“I’m sorry. You needed to die for my dream to come true. My ending is well deserved,” the cultivator weakly smiled before his volume rose to be heard across the square. “I risked everything for power, but I failed. My ending has no relation with my clan.”
Zac didn’t say anything, and the man died a just a few seconds later. A lot of murmurs erupted from the cultivators who had spectated the battle from a safe distance, and a lot of people seemed to be recording the events into information crystals.
Being recorded was pretty much expected, so he didn’t care, but he rather readied his still bloody axe for any follow-up attacks. As expected, his mind suddenly felt a pang of danger, and he quickly turned around as [Everlasting] appeared on his arm.
However, the assassin who had wanted to take advantage of the moment Zac let his guard down found himself impaled on a black spear as Ogras appeared out of his shadows. A burst of shadows ripped the man to pieces, and the demon walked up next to Zac as his face dripped with blood.
“It’s over!” the demon shouted. “The quest is over, and Lord Piker has withstood the Trial of the Ruthless Heavens. We understand the allure of the reward and the effect of the Apparition, so we’ll let all enmities stay in behind and dissipate in Base Town as we leave. But any further attempts on our lives here or out in the open world will be met with a vengeance of extreme proportions. If not today then later.”
A snort escaped from Zac’s nose even if he understood the severity of the situation. It was just like Ogras, appearing the last moment looking like a heroic defender of justice with his spear pointed at the skies. Zac knew full well that the demon was nowhere near as confident as he wanted to appear, but it was for the best that Ogras dealt with the fallout.
Zac had immediately understood what Ogras was doing. He was trying to make minimize potential threats that could crop up in the future. They already had the Zethaya, Tsarun Clan, and The Great Redeemer to worry about, and causing a grudge with dozens of more families would neither do him nor Earth any good.
He could only hope that the forces of the sector would take the death of their scions with stride. A few people dying should barely be noticeable for these huge forces as thousands died every day in their struggle to become stronger. Such was the life of a cultivator.
If that wasn’t enough the various forces still might on his good due to worry about what he might become in the future. He had reached the 9th floor, something that only had happened once in recent memory, which should be a huge indicator of great potential for the people in this sector.