Chapter 674: Equanimity (1/2)
On the other side of the door was a small balcony overlooking the enormous crater left behind after the Havenfort Monarch. Zac had been prepared for the hole to be big after reading about it in the missive, but even then he wasn’t mentally prepared to the staggering scene.
The chasm was endlessly vast, possibly having a diameter that eclipsed Zac’s whole island. As for the depth, it was even greater. Zac fought off his vertigo and walked over to the edge of the balcony, but he immediately regretted peering down. There were protective barriers preventing anyone from falling into the chasm, but Zac fell back and had to sit down even with those measures in place.
It was endless.
It felt like the chasm reached all the way into the abyss itself. Had the whole planet been pierced through when the C-grade cultivator fell? It almost seemed like it. Zac couldn’t imagine the force that would be required to create a crater like this. And this was even after the Monarch allegedly controlled the eruption and directed most of his force toward the Heavens, which explained why the chasm was almost perfectly circular.
Zac shuddered at the thought of someone like this targeting Earth.
His mental state soon calmed down though, and his gaze turned to the right. The balcony led to a pathway, thankfully five meters wide, that seemed to stretch along the edge of the tube-formed crater down into the depths. On a second look, there were hundreds of similar balconies as his own, each of them leading down a path of their own.
Judging by the incline and circumference of the crater, Zac guessed that each checkpoint might be one single loop around the chasm. He couldn’t spot a single trial taker though, but Zac figured that was because there was some force or array preventing people from seeing and helping each other.
There was a barrier blocking access to the pathway, and Zac figured that there was someone already using the current path. But since he was teleported to this specific balcony, he guessed that the one currently on his path had almost finished his or her run. So, Zac took out one of his prayer mats and sat down, slowly steadying his mind.
As expected, it only took two hours before a soothing bell woke Zac up from his meditation as the shield dissipated. Zac saw no point in loitering about, and he took a steadying breath before he stepped onto the path. However, he only took a single step before he stopped as a quest prompt had appeared in front of him.
Depths of Despair (Limited, Trial): Descend into the chasm. Reward: Havenfort Chasm Limited Title. (0/5)
Zac read the description, but there wasn’t much to go by. The (0/5) in progress no doubt referred to the five checkpoints on this trial. The situation was straightforward enough and he started walking down the pathway.
He walked for a few minutes, and the only sounds in the area were his steps and the occasional moaning echoes created by wind swirling around in the chasm itself. There was definitely an odd energy suffusing this place, which Zac hadn’t noticed before. He did feel a heaviness on his body, but it was barely noticeable at this point.
Not only that, Zac did feel slightly dour, but he honestly wasn’t sure whether that could be blamed on the trial. The surroundings were dark, the atmosphere was oppressive, and he wasn’t in the best state of mind himself. It would be weird if he felt exuberant at a place like this. Still, there was a mental component to the trial, so he didn’t relax his focus.
The minutes soon turned into four hours as Zac progressed further and further down the chasm, and the pressure eventually turned palpable. However, the first checkpoint was still nowhere in sight, and Zac decided to speed things up a bit. Unfortunately, it turned out that his movement skill was blocked. Perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised, as there were all kinds of odd movement skills.
What if someone started moving through the ground itself shooting straight down toward the final checkpoint?
Zac also noticed that the suppression turned a lot more powerful if he sped up, and he was eventually forced to slow down to a brisk walk. No wonder the missive he bought said that the trial was expected to take up to ten days. You needed to slowly and gradually make your way down.
There was not much to do except walk in silence, and Zac’s thoughts eventually started wandering. Zac tried to focus on the future, to plan out his next steps, but his thoughts kept returning to those he had lost. His father, Alea, Ogras and Billy… Thea. Some were dead, others lost where he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to meet them again.
After all, the Million Gates Territory was vast, almost as big as the whole Allbright Empire. Finding a hidden realm in that place would be like searching for a needle in a galactic haystack. And if the existence of the Dimensional Seed became widely spread, that was even worse. How would Ogras and Billy survive when Hegemons and perhaps even Monarchs made their move?
The sea in his mind was growing erratic, and the clean line between life and death became blurred as dozens of whirlpools erupted. Even the island in the middle, the very core of his being, was assailed by powerful waves that crashed into it. The small ocean had turned into a mirror of his mental state, and it didn’t look good.
An errant thought was all that it had taken for it to spiral out of control, and Zac realized that he might not even make it past the first checkpoint unless he started to take things seriously. A trial that blocked mental defense skills would test one’s soul, but also one’s willpower and focus.
The trial thankfully wasn’t timed, so he stopped for a moment and took a few deep breaths as he tried to enter a meditative state. With the pervasive pressure in the air Zac was unable to completely turn off his mind, but the chaos in his mind slowly calmed down as he forcibly focused on the task at hand.
After a few more minutes his soul sea had returned to the previous state with a clean line of demarcation. Zac took a deep breath and continued down the endless chasm. His body could barely feel the effect of the trial’s physical pressure, but he was shocked at how fragile his mental state was.
Zac didn't let his thoughts stray any longer, and he kept a constant vigil as he pushed forward. He soon passed by the first checkpoint, but he didn’t even stop and catch his breath as he continued further down. There was a qualitative change in the pressure at the second layer, but Zac wouldn't give in at all. The second checkpoint arrived just a day later, and two days later the third, which meant he had gained a better title than most trial takers.
By this point the pressure was immense, and Zac was unable to think about anything but moving forward. Right foot, left foot, rinse and repeat. The slightest loss of control could be extremely dangerous, to the point that his soul would get hurt. The pressure on his body was bearable by its innate power alone, but he knew that he was in trouble in regards to his mind.
He was moving forward on pure willpower by this point, but his soul wouldn't be able to go much further. He had just passed the third checkpoint, but the pressure was more than twice what it was after the second. It was no wonder that most warriors only managed to reach the second stop. Even with a reincarnated soul, he was no mentalist, and he knew that his willpower wasn't as strong as some warriors who had tempered themselves for centuries.
Yet he felt it was too early to give up now. Eventually, he had taken three days on the third layer. He was like a zombie by this point as he stumbled forward, his eyes red from strain and veins covering his forehead. It felt like the harder he tried to fight the pressure, the stronger it got. It was like an annoyance that just increased in severity the more you focused on it.
Eventually, it came to a tipping point, where Zac simply couldn’t keep going as he was. The pressure was too great, and his whole mind aperture vibrated ominously from the invisible pressure. The two oceans were extremely chaotic even when he desperately tried to impose order, which was a telling sign of his mental state.
Zac stood in place, looking down at the depths with mixed emotions. Should he give in? This was ultimately not a life-death situation for him. Passing just three checkpoints would give him a pretty bad title, but there was no point in risking cracking his soul for a slightly better one. He could always go for another trial instead.
Zac didn’t immediately leave though, but rather looked down at the chasm with reluctance. He had come here in search of more than just a title, yet he had gained nothing. He walked up the path for a bit, but only to the point that his mind wasn't shaking any longer. He sat down and slowly relinquished his strict control over his emotions.
A thousand thoughts immediately flashed through his mind and his mind shook from the onslaught, but it soon calmed down as Zac started to impose order to the chaos. He didn't let his mind run haywire, but he also didn't shut any thought down. He slowly started to go over everything he had encountered and done over the past months, trying to find some closure.