Chapter 526: Holy Fire (1/2)
Zac didn’t have time to curse the demon for his foreshadowing as he felt something terrifying was coming. He immediately started setting up his layers of defenses, not holding anything back for potential enemies. Everything except him was long dead in the area, killed by either the explosion, the magma, or the concussive explosions who had rocked the whole core of the basin.
The cage of [Profane Seal] sprung up around him, forming an outer layer of protection. Zac normally used the skill as a means of caging his enemies, but it was just as good at defending from the outside. It was also one of the skills that hadn’t worsened in compatibility at all since gaining the Fetters of Desolation class. Between the chains and the entrapment, it looked like it was right up the new class’s ally.
The cage encapsulated the Incursion as well even when he shrunk it to the smallest size possible, and Zac was both surprised and relieved to see that the energy-dense pillar didn’t cause a clash with his skill. The pillar that almost blinded him with its intense fire-attuned energies shone straight through the fractal dome of his skill like it was just an illusion.
Zac had no idea how that worked, but he had no time to look into it as the flames were almost upon him.
A huge amount of Miasma left his body the next moment a hundred skeletons materialized. They didn’t stay around inside the cage though, but they rather ran out as Zac opened the back gate of [Profane Seal] before closing it again. The skeletons didn’t stop there, but they kept running into the jungle, only stopping hundreds of meters away when he couldn’t control them any further away.
They weren’t there to defend against the incoming flames, but rather act as damage substitutes. They would hopefully work as sentries as well in case there actually were cultists hiding in the jungle. He didn’t share vision with the things, but he did have a vague sense of the life-force around them. He would also feel it if they were destroyed by something, giving him an early warning that way.
The skeletons barely made it out in time as the holy flames finally descended upon the cage. He was immediately inundated in not only a blazing heat, but also a pressure that he could feel on a spiritual level. But the shield held, though Zac knew that the golden flames were not the true threat. The real danger was the damaged insignia in the sky.
The enormous rune still hadn’t completely cracked yet, but Zac could see between the fiery sky that it wasn’t long for this world. There was a massive cut in the middle of it now, where the half-moon blade had struck it. Hairline cracks spread all across its surface as well, and an intense light radiated out from the cracks, proving there was still a lot of untamed energies trapped inside.
Zac still didn’t feel safe after seeing the ominous portents in the sky, and the black armor spread out across his body as [Love’s Bond] took its defensive form. He might not be able to activate [Death’s Embrace] as things stood, but he could still use the shield-shaped coffin to summon [Immutable Bulwark].
He also tried activating a few backup defensive talismans just in case, but they didn't work just like everything else. There was nothing else he could activate, so he finally started digging a hole into the ground, hoping to use the earth itself as an insulating layer against the flames. It had worked against Salvation, so he hoped it would work once more.
However, Zac only managed to rip a ten-meter hole before a terrifying crack in the sky released a tremendous pressure, almost destroying the outer cage in an instant. The massive gates and miasmic towers were reduced to decrepit ruins, and the azure fractals had almost turned invisible from the flames. There was no more time, so he punched the ground one last time and jumped into the hole before he put his bulwark as a stopgap to block out the flames.
[Profane Seal] completely crumbled the next moment, just as a shocking aura was released above him. Zac couldn’t see what was going on because of having burrowed down, but it almost felt like a celestial had descended upon the basin. A marvelous aura drenched the whole jungle, and Zac felt his mind going blank.
The Lord was calling him, so what was he doing underground? He needed to welcome His arrival and offer obeisance. Zac slowly got up to his feet, but his whole body suddenly froze as he was startled awake.
What the hell was that?
One more second and he would have deactivated his defensive shield and welcomed the holy flames from above. His mind had thankfully been hardened by constant life-and-death struggles and competing with the Splinter, allowing him to snap out of it before it was too late. More importantly, he still had [Indomitable] to fall back on. It was far stronger than [Mental Fortress], and it had managed to rebuff the false thoughts after just a second, even though the skill was still middle proficiency.
It was just in time too, as the flames slammed into the bulwark the next second, immediately incinerating the shallow layers of dirt above.
The miasmic shield from [Immutabe Bulwark] was mostly opaque, but it still allowed him to somewhat see the fiery hellscape above. The flames were no longer golden, but rather replaced by a milky white. The holy aura in the flames was multiple times stronger than what he felt before, no doubt containing the essence of the rune in the sky.
His heartstrings tugged again as he saw the pristine flames, and part of him just wanted to open his arms and take it on. But he didn’t completely lose himself this time after already having realized the threat of the flames. However, it did make him wonder. Were the zealots perhaps not quite as pious as advertised, but rather forcibly converted?
Zac’s pitch-black eyes were illuminated by the flames as he thought of the possibilities. What if the Church of Everlasting Dao had formed some sort of ingenious cultivation system? They turned cultivators into zealots with the holy flames, and the zealots kept empowering the flames with their conviction. It formed a self-perpetuating source of power that could swallow everything in its surroundings.
Things quickly took a turn for the worse though, stopping Zac from entertaining any other stray thoughts. The flames steadily ate away at the floor itself, until he was standing in a deep crater, assaulted by flames from every direction.
His bulwark was able to rebuff the flames, but it couldn't cover him from all sides, so the flames finally reached his last line of defense, the black armor of [Vanguard of Undeath]. His whole body was awash with pain the next moment as the flames glommed onto him. Zac tried to at least keep the flames outside, but they were like burrowing parasites that found their way inside through the tiniest cracks and weaknesses in his defenses.
Sizzling sounds escaped from within his armor as he was getting cremated alive. He screamed on top of his lungs, but his cries were drowned out by the roaring flames. Rolling around on the ground did nothing, and the Bulwark had essentially become useless by this point. All he could see was white, and all that he could feel was agony.
Even his mind was assaulted by the insidious whispers of the holy flames, trying to make him stop resisting with the help of [Vanguard of Undeath] and [Undying Legion]. He was currently infusing the black armor with the Fragment of the Coffin, while his body itself fought the flames with the Fragment of the Bodhi. He also released a steady stream of miasma from his pores, which helped combat the flames as well.