Chapter 522: The Abyss and Arcadia (1/2)
The massive eagles soared ever closer, but Zac didn’t panic as he opened his skill menu while fleeing from the flock. He had already looked at the description, but he wanted to use it as a clue to what might be the problem.
[E] Rapturous Divide - Proficiency: Early. Between the Abyss and Arcadia is an endless chasm. Upgradeable.
The [E] in front of the skill was unique, as the other skills were without any tag. However, that wasn't important right now, but rather finding out why he couldn't use the skill. His eyes bore into the text like he was trying to see any hidden truths behind them, and his mind furiously worked to put together the clues so far.
“Split life and death...The Abyss and Arcadia,” Zac muttered with a frown as he tried to understand the fractal, and something suddenly clicked.
He quickly pushed Cosmic Energy into [Chop] as well, and a terrifyingly large fractal blade grew out from [Verun’s Bite]. He was still only able to maintain a stable edge that was around 10 meters, whereas anything larger would start to destabilize after a few seconds.
However, a change quickly spread out through the blade as a powerful twinned surge of energy shot into the fractal edge from his left arm. The shaky blade immediately stabilized before it started to transform. The blade grew even larger and more robust as a new set of overlapping fractals covered its length, one golden and one black.
Zac felt a completely new connection to the blade like it was part of himself, and he finally understood what his new skill would do. He infused the massive edge with the Fragment of the Coffin before he swung it in a wide horizontal arc toward the hundreds of enormous eagles that were still bearing down on them.
The evasive maneuvers while he tried to figure out his skills had incited blood-lust in the flock, and their eyes shone with a sinister light as they flapped their wings with enough force to cause a storm. The fractal edge didn’t shot toward the beasts like how [Chop] usually worked, but a black wave instead spread out from it as the edge itself turned into a lustrous gold.
The wave was extremely swift, and it covered a large number of the eagles before they even had a chance to react.
However, there was no scene of carnage that followed the swing. A few eagles screamed in pain as they were assaulted by the corrosive components of the Fragment of the Coffin, but there was blood raining the mountain walls this time. The eagles were instead shrouded in darkness, like Zac had thrown a can of black paint rather than a ferocious attack at them.
The odd scene wasn’t surprising to Zac, as he had only set up the first half of the attack. The air screamed as he swung the golden fractal edge once more, and another wave shot out, this one looking like a wave of sunlight breaking through the clouds. The fractal edge still stayed attached to [Verun’s Bite], but it crumbled shortly after the second wave had left it.
The golden wave passed through the flock of birds as well, and a shocking change occurred. A clear line ran straight across the flock, with the upper side only holding the golden sheen, and the lower side drenched in darkness. It reminded Zac of his bout of inspiration inside his cultivation cave where he split the two conflicting energies apart, though on a far grander scale.
The odd scene only lasted for an instant before the horizon cracked, the dividing line between gold and black turning into a crack in space itself. Two opposite shockwaves spread out, one toward the sky and one toward the ground. Hundreds of birds fell apart mid-flight, looking like they had been cut apart by a laser.
The two shockwaves caused a cascading halo to emerge on the horizon, and Zac froze in awe as he looked at the spectacle. The golden wave had turned into what looked like a massive sunset that spread for over a hundred meters. Even more amazing, Zac felt like he could hear Buddhist hymns coming from a paradise he could barely discern through the golden haze.
The golden sun was matched by a black opposite, the two halves forming an almost perfect circle. The hair on Zac’s arms stood on end as he turned his attention to the darker half, feeling like he was looking at the netherworld itself. Distant wails of lost soul rattled in his mind, and Zac felt like someone or something was staring back at him from within the darkness.
The effect only lasted for a few seconds before it dissipated, leaving a sky clear of any aggressive birds. The attack hadn’t hit every eagle, but it looked like a couple of them had been swallowed by half-suns, not even leaving a corpse like their bisected brethren. Zac nodded in appreciation as he kept flying, thankful he had done this test on the outer side of the mountain range.
[Rapturous Divide] was a lot flashier than he had expected, and he could only pray that no lizardmen scouts were hiding in this remote part of the mountain range. Of course, he knew that he had pushed the skill pretty hard as well, and he realized now that he didn't actually need to use a 100-meter blade to create it.
He could have activated the skill by adding a small half-meter edge over [Verun's Bite] as well, which would allow him to use the skill in a one-on-one melee battle.
The skill took advantage of the opposing natures of life and death. The two were each other's opposites, and this fact was utilized to create a divide in space itself. It was a high-concept empowerment that would turn most defenses useless, just like a spatial tear would. If he had this skill when fighting the battleroach king or the dragon he wouldn’t have been so hard-pressed to wound them, as he doubted they were able to stop a tear in space itself.