Chapter 760: Golden Canopy (1/2)

The towering mountain and the mindbending sky of pure Dao shattered, and it was like someone had started up time again as Zac found himself back in his body. He felt like days had passed as he had been taken through one vision after another, while in reality, it had only taken an instant. The swirling whirlpool of magma once more started spinning, but Zac saw that it was starting to collapse now that there was no shard to maintain balance.

However, Zac didn't have time to worry about something like that as a tremendous force built up inside his body, a storm of creation. Not only did it forcibly pull in shocking amounts of energy from the surroundings, but it robbed Zac as well. Mental energy, Cosmic Energy, even his life force went into the mix, joining the madness the Shard of Creation was concocting.

The absorption of the shard was quickly getting out of hand, but Zac did have one advantage this time around that he lacked the last time. First of all, he was almost a whole grade stronger compared to when he fled through the technocrat vessel. But more importantly, he now had a properly awakened bloodline to help out.

His pores had once more turned into small vortices that siphoned off some of the endless energy radiating from the Shard of Creation. [Void Heart] was hard at work as well, swallowing a decent chunk with every bite. And it quickly became evident that the more Creation Energy his body drew away, the less energy and life-force did the storm draw from its surroundings.

[Purity of the Void] helped as well, though it didn’t actually expel the Creation Energy, but rather stripped some of the shard’s latent will from it. Some even entered his Soul Aperture, some getting swallowed by [Spiritual Void], and some getting infused into the golden ocean. The very system that helped him deal with the Twilight Energy had come through and protected him once again.

But most surprising was a new addition, an unusually powerful vortex that had appeared almost right where the Shard of Creation had been frozen while he was shown the vision - at the top of his sternum, just below his neck. Its suction was not as powerful as [Void Heart], but exponentially greater than the small passive draw from his cells.

However, Zac couldn't see where it went. It just disappeared, like it was drawn to another dimension. There was one very exciting possibility for this, but there was no way he had time to investigate the situation. Not even his Void Emperor-bloodline could contain the vast energies that the rampaging shard exuded. It needed release, and Zac desperately struggled to expel it from his body before he burst at the seams.

A thousand streams that fluctuated between opalescence and gold shot out in every direction, each one of them filled with the majestic force of Creation and Zac's very essence. Anything they touched, changed. Most notably, the ocean of magma in the supersized volcanic chamber immediately started to undergo tumultuous changes, and thousand chaotic scenes played out at once.

And in the middle of it, Zac found himself a conduit of energies he couldn't understand or control. Why was this so different? Pain muddled Zac's thoughts, but he struggled to stay sane as he tried to figure out a solution. But the voices were so loud, almost drowning out his thoughts. It was just a deep buzz in the depths of his brain, but it was rife with meaning.

It was a constant flood of suggestions, thousands of them crashing into his mind every second. Form wings and fly out of here. Create a tunnel of unmeltable steel and walk out. Turn fire to ice. Become an elemental and embrace the heat. The whispers were endless and without reprieve, to the point that Zac started to lose sight of what was him and what was the shard.

He had thought it would be different with his first set of remnants being behind lock and key, but the calamity the Aetherlord mentioned had come just the same. Was this the reason for the fall of the Eastern Trigram Sect? One was an eternal curse, two was a calamity where the user became a walking disaster.

Zac despaired as he felt a second wave of unfettered creation coming on again. What was the use of his bloodline improving or a new Hidden Node being born, if he wasn't alive to enjoy it? But he suddenly remembered his talk with the Autarch. He had talked like the effect of collecting five shards was something well-known, meaning that two was just a threshold.

A bottleneck that needed to be conquered, no different from the other difficulties he had managed to conquer thus far. Others had passed this step before him, so why couldn't he?

Magma beneath his feet turned into a stable plateau of stone, but Zac didn't move away even as magma fell toward him like crashing tidal waves. He needed to somehow force the shard until submission and pass the calamity before he could worry about anything else. Even rapidly transforming lava that had submerged him had to take a backseat.

With his Endurance, Vitality, and Gear, he would survive at least half an hour like this, but the same couldn't be said about the remnant. His body was already overflowing with energy again, and Zac knew that he couldn’t simply make it disappear. The wheels had already been set in motion, and a price needed to be paid.

But did it really have to be his own life force? Zac was reluctant, but he still took out a small box containing what looked like a milky-white diamond, the third of the five supreme items he had picked up at the depths of the Chasm. Inside, an almost heaven-defying energy was trapped – longevity. This thing was just like the Longevity Pearls he found back in the Tower of Eternity, but it was on another level completely.

This thing was enough to create over ten peak-quality longevity pills according to Catheya, far more external life-force than anyone could absorb on their own. After all, these kinds of treasures were all limited, just like Attribute Fruits. Some cultivators could take in more longevity than others, but it would normally not surpass 10-20% of your original lifespan.

For Zac, whose current lifespan was around 5,000 years, it meant a couple of centuries. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, going by the rate the shard was going. But as long as he could continuously draw the energy from the gemstone and use it to power the forced creation rather than supplant his own life, he would hopefully not emerge from this as an old man.

The energy kept building, but Zac breathed out in relief when feeling a warm stream of what best could be described as time entering the fleshy blob his arm had turned into. It worked. Instead of losing decades of his lifespan, he had only lost a couple of months, with the rest coming from the longevity treasure. It was a shame using one of his five supreme treasures like this, but it was far preferable to dying.

But dealing with the cost of the shard's outbursts was just the first step. Zac immediately cursed when a deep rumble spread through the area as if prompted by his wayward thoughts. Something was brewing, and it wasn’t hard to guess what considering he stood in the heart of a volcano.

The magma around him suddenly transformed from molten rock to water, which in turn was instantly vaporized by the searing heat. It resulted in a tremendous eruption, where magma and Zac were both pushed away to make room for the heat expansion. Zac groaned as he felt a few bones snap, but they instantly fused back together thanks to another thought.

He had to stay calm. An errant wish for the hard-to-traverse magma to be more like water had almost knocked him unconscious. Getting out that way was certainly possible, but Zac refused to lean on the shard unless he absolutely had to. He had seen the result of indulging desire over and over in the visions.

It was a poison, like the Cosmic Water that seemingly quenched your thirst while burning out your pathways. He needed to seal the remnant somehow, but there was simply no time. In fact, Zac realized there wasn’t time for anything at all as he sensed a terrifying force build beneath him.

This wasn’t something like the attack of a Hegemon, this was the fury of nature itself. There was no time to push through the sea of lava and run through the endless tunnels. His mind frantically spun, and he reluctantly infused his will into the third burgeoning pulse building inside him. A wave of opalescent gold shot out, and the whole area around him turned into a 50-meter diamond with him securely ensconced in a small chamber in its heart.