Chapter 734: Crushing Pressure (1/2)

Searing pain woke Zac up with a start and he found rampant energies wreaking havoc inside his body. It wasn't something Uona had done, but rather terrifying amounts of Twilight Energy, far more than his bloodline could handle. His whole body was barely holding together from all the wounds, but the energy was an even more immediate threat.

Perhaps he should consider it a relief that there was no kill energy occupying space inside his body. He had no idea how Uona had managed to survive blowing herself up in an eruption of blood of such epic proportions, but she should barely be hanging on just like him from the state he left her in. Unfortunately, that was not much of a comfort as he found himself on the verge of succumbing to the environment around him.

No matter what he did, things only got worse inside his body, and Zac tried to swim toward the surface where the density should be lower. However, as he looked around to get his bearings there was only darkness. Darkness so pervasive Zac even feared that he had been blinded by that final explosion.

Thankfully, the world lit with color to an almost blinding degree when he activated [Cosmic Gaze], and Zac immediately understood what was going on.

Uona’s self-destruct skill had knocked him out, and he had been dragged God knows how far down into the depths by the currents. If the absolute lack of any light reaching this far below the surface was the first clue, then the terrifying amounts of Twilight Energy assaulting him was the second.

The density of Twilight Energy was multiple times more powerful than that of the surface of the Twilight Chasm, dozens of times greater than other parts of the Twilight Ocean. This was way beyond what he could handle, even with his unique set of advantages. And that was when he was in prime condition.

Just a stump remained of his right leg, and his left hand stopped a bit after his elbow. His pathways were broken and the little Miasma left in his body moved turbidly through the storms of Twilight Energy ravaging his innards. Normally, losing all his miasma would result in swapping over to his Human side, but he actually wasn’t sure he’d survive the transformation in his harried form.

He was running out of time, and his feeble attempts at swimming upward were completely futile. The currents were shockingly powerful, and new wounds kept appearing across his body to add insult to injury. He needed to get out of this place, or at least find a spot to rest up and recover.

Zac was dizzy and nigh-delirious, but he suddenly saw a spot of even more condensed darkness rapidly approach, and he knew that his chance had arrived. Four chains shot forward, each of them empowered by [Blighted Cut] to give them greater penetrative force. One, two, three chains were claimed by the currents before they reached their target, but two hit true and embedded themselves in the wall just as Zac was swept by the underwater mountain.

Sharp pain in his midriff cost him his consciousness for an instant as he was suddenly forced to a halt, but being blasted by the furious waters didn't let him stay under for long. He arduously dragged himself to the wall, helplessly scanning for any caves or crevasses where he could take cover for just a bit.

There was none.

Zac wouldn’t give in though, and [Verun’s Bite] appeared in his hand as he frantically started carving a hole into stone. Any rock that was placed this deep into the Twilight Chasm and still remained was bound to be extremely durable, and Zac barely managed to leave marks deeper than a few centimeters even when going as hard as his condition allowed.

But he refused to stop, and one chipping after another was claimed by the streams as he dug further and further into the mountain. After five minutes, he had finally made a hole two meters deep, where the waters were blessedly calm. This place allowed him to avoid the currents, but it didn’t solve his predicament with the Twilight Energy.

But he had an idea.

He properly secured himself in the stone with every single chain before he took out a spare shield to block out the few streams finding their way into his crevasse. Only when he and his spot were secured did he take out the small Array Disk for [Nine Reincarnations Manual] with shaky hands.

The Array hummed to life as Zac crammed a cocktail of Soldier Pills and Healing pills down his throat, and he almost cried with relief as the insanely condensed Twilight Energies assailing him rapidly decreased in density. He felt a powerful drain of Mental Energy in his mind, and he passively let the array siphon what it needed as he took stock of his situation.

He was in an absolutely horrid state, with deep lacerations covering his whole body. Even his pathways were damaged, not to speak of his missing limbs. For now, he could only bind a set of ropes around the stump of his leg and arm to stem the loss of Ichor as he focused on other issues.

The combination of pills and the array had at least allowed him to right the ship, albeit barely. [Void Heart] and [Purity of the Void] were fast at work dealing with the lethal levels of Twilight Energy that had already accumulated in his body. The real star was obviously the Life-Death Array.

Not only did it continuously swallow exorbitant amounts of Twilight Energy, but it also expelled huge amounts of Cosmic Energy. The Array only wanted the attunement to empower the Mental Energy going into the array, and it expelled the actual energy into the surroundings.

It wasn’t a great feeling to sit in the middle of a cloud of Cosmic Energy as an undead, but it was far preferable to Twilight Energy. The Cosmic Energy that the array spat out didn’t possess the weird ability to burrow into his body, and it essentially acted as a shield against the Twilight Energy in the surroundings.

Of course, the Twilight Energy was endless and pervasive, and it continuously kept swallowing up the Cosmic Energy he generated. However, Zac had no lack of Nexus Crystals, and he started to continuously crush Miasma Crystals to bolster the effect from his Array. Those two actions together were just enough to keep the immediate Twilight Energy at bay to the point that he was expelling more than he was forced to take in.

It was a continuous drain on his resources, but it provided him with a stable environment as long as he kept the array running. There was enough Twilight Energy inside his body to kill ten peak E-grade Cultivators, and if not for his unusual bloodline he would probably already have died before waking up in the depths.

His Soul Ocean on his undead side had already reached sublimation after swallowing the mysterious energy in the valley, which slowed down the purification process somewhat. The Soul Strengthening Manual didn’t need much of his attention though, and he managed to use some of his Mental Energy to start refining the Twilight Energy.

Twilight Energy was slowly turned into Miasma which replenished his pitifully low stock, and he felt himself slowly crawling away from the brink of death. Thirty minutes passed in this state of gradual recuperation until the first cycle of his Soul Strengthening Method ended. A storm of attuned mental energy came crashing back, filled with the power of the Mystic Realm itself.

The cultivation method was very much the same as before, so he had started with his death-attuned side since he was in his Draugr body at the moment.

Doing so would slow down and weaken the effect of the cultivation session compared to if cultivated as normal, infusing himself with death while living, and with life when dead. But that was exactly what he wanted in this situation. The less pressure he put on his mind, the better. The more time he could buy for himself, the better.

Still, a huge chunk of death-attuned mental energy poured into his soul aperture, and his deathly soul sea became even darker as it started to churn. The moment the first revolution ended, the ambient energy instantly exploded back to full force, and Zac quickly activated the second rotation to give himself another breather.

This process continued for six whole hours, at which point the black ocean was veritably shaking with barely restrained might. It looked like it would swallow the life-attuned waters and turn his soul into one vast ocean of the abyss, and Zac was forced to continuously expend a large amount of mental energy to keep the ocean in its lane.

Seeing as the first half of the session was done, Zac changed his race after making sure he was firmly attached to the wall. A bout of weakness later he found himself filled with life, but he was quickly filled with a wave of nausea from the large amount of deathly energies that filled his body. It came from [Void Heart] that had operated at maximum during the cultivation session.