“What is going on?!” Sorothom swore under his breath. His connection with the Stygian Anchors spread throughout the Imperial Graveyard was rapidly weakening.
Some were even trying to return the debt they were holding instead of passing it on to the cult. Sorothom’s wrath only grew when the innumerable streaks of lightning diverted into the Centurion Base disappeared through invisible cracks. The next moment, his Inner World was inundated with Heavenly Wrath for a second round of punishment from the same wave.
Moro fiercely resisted the Eternal Laws as they sought equilibrium and repayment of Sorothom’s debt. Its existence was already in defiance of the Heavens, and the desolates grew more severe whenever they encountered the Heart Curse’s domain. Their fates being entwined, Sorothom had to endure his parasite’s suffering on top of his own.
This much wasn’t a threat. Sorothom had spent eons preparing for this day, and half a tribulation wasn’t enough to leave a crack in his foundations. The problem was what the changes signified. This was only the second bolt of nine, and the Ascension Chamber was already fading. It should have worked.
No, it did work until something changed. Sorothom suppressed the calamity befalling his world, using Dao to subvert Law as he infused his will into his Daughter Array. There were some warnings of damage but nothing that could explain why the Imperial Sacrificial Rite he’d refined for so long had lost its connection with the base.
Without the rite to lessen the load, he’d have to face the full extent of Heaven’s rejection. That would have been acceptable if there were only two or three strikes remaining. With more than two minor cycles remaining, there was no way. If he could pass this hurdle with just treasures and his foundations, he wouldn’t have needed to go through all this effort and waste his golden years.
This couldn’t go on. Thousands of tendrils burrowed deeper into the channels and circuits, trying to extract more power for the Ascension Chamber. It changed nothing. The ancient arrangement was like a punctured balloon. No matter how much Stellar Energy Sorothom dragged into its arrays, it barely managed to rouse a response.
“Alone, beneath this fairy work of sky,” a gentle laugh echoed through the chamber.
Sorothom’s eyes widened as he saw a familiar figure emerge from the treasury, holding a box he didn’t recognize. It was ancient, and its aura matched the Centurion Star. How had he missed it? Sorothom was certain he’d sacrificed everything inside the Sagittarius Vault to kickstart the rite and trick the Ascension Chamber.
“You? What have you done?” Sorothom growled, almost going insane with anger over the princeling’s confident smile.
“Your method is interesting. Using the Centurion Project to impersonate a representative of the Starfall Court. Then having the trapped spirits of the graveyard willingly take on Heaven’s Wrath, thinking they are furthering the Empire’s cause. It’s the same as your original plan, isn’t it? Create a Grand Formation based on willing sacrifice through the Intersector War, and then shift that willingness to you.”
The prince ruefully shook his head. “Alas, without faith, there can be no cause. Without purpose, there can be no Empire.”
With the next bolt gathering above, its focus almost solely on Sorothom, he wanted nothing more than to tear the smug child to shreds. Unfortunately, he was more use alive. A bloody string emerged from Sorothom’s nail, effortlessly piercing Yrin Tobrial’s protective sigil appearing from a necklace. The little imperial didn’t even get the chance to draw his sword before the thread was firmly embedded in his heart.
Sorothom drew in the dispersed Imperial Qi, using it as a bridge for his Minor Dao of the Red Thread. He could immediately sense two gatherings of supplicants in the same space. He ignored them, as their combined fate couldn’t measure up to the mark of Imperial Qi on the prince’s person. The hasty connection wouldn’t allow for subversion at the level Sorothom needed, nor was there enough meat on the bone to last until the Heavens were satiated.
Having the princeling take on some of his punishment would, however, buy enough time to right the ship. The torment Yrin Tobrial would suffer was a welcome bonus, though Sorothom found it difficult to enjoy impaling the boy’s spirit with barbs of supplanted fate. If anything, it robbed him of the opportunity to reward the betrayal with a proper response.
“You should have stuck to your promise, child,” Sorothom said with a dark look as the ancient box floated into his hands. “Your little guardian, who’s been chasing my shadows all this while, can’t save you now.”
“The eradication of sin is the duty of the orthodoxy, and the Seven Heavens are leading those efforts. I’d shame my ancestors if I honored an agreement with a heretic,” Yrin said, a slight tremble to his voice the only indication of his immense suffering.
“Orthodoxy? We can smell your sin.” A second head grew on Sorothom’s shoulder, looking at the suffering prince with ghoulish hunger. “The seal was yours for the taking. Now you become Moro’s food instead.”
“Why would I target that man? He woke me up when I’d strayed. And I believe his presence will introduce interesting variables to the pillar’s ascent. I don’t want to miss that,” Yrin Tobrial said with a smile, his face pale and covered in sweat. He was losing the battle.
Another rumble shook the sky. Sorothom was running out of time, so he pushed harder to transplant his sin. At that moment, a sealed Spatial Ring gave off a scorching heat. The seal he’d carefully laid proved useless, and Sorothom had no time to avoid the flicker of light that burst out. It burrowed into his inner world, leaving Sorothom aghast. The sigil emitting supreme command didn’t harm Moro or destabilize their assailed world.
It was worse. The sigil acted like a locator for the Heavens. His Grand Sacrificial Array stalling had already uncovered more of his cultivation to the Heavens than he would’ve liked, and the sigil was rubbing salt in the wound. If he didn’t stop it, he would be fully exposed. After having spent a million years avoiding Heaven’s direct gaze, Sorothom didn’t dare imagine what would happen.
How was this possible? Sorothom had carefully investigated the Writ of Peerage, confirming it held no trackers nor hidden arrays. Even then, he’d submerged it in [Filthfaith Extract] and sealed it in an isolating ring to prevent any tampering or divination. For it to notice the situation outside and transform in this manner beggared reason.
“The emperor’s will may be capricious, but it may never be wrong,” Yrin said, shaking his head in reproach. “You consider yourself above these frontier barbarians, forgetting you left the Heartlands in your youth. Your understanding of the peak is limited, leaving you worse off than the blind in some regards. The barbarians are at least aware of their ignorance.”
Fury overtook reason. Sorothom clenched his hand, turning the prince into a ball of goop. Regret immediately replaced the sense of satisfaction when the prince reformed in a puff of Faith and Imperial Qi. Sorothom’s face grew even uglier when a shockwave rocked his Inner World, adding new cracks from which lightning seeped.
Sorothom felt like he was going insane, and he couldn’t help a seed of fear sprouting as he faced this tribulation in the shape of a man. The prince was right. He’d left the Heartlands as an outer disciple, before gaining access to the sect’s true teachings and the hidden truths of the world. There was no telling what other means a son of the Seven Heavens had in store, leaving Sorothom with an unbearable frustration.
Why had this bastard chosen to interfere? Was it all for the treasure box? Sorothom doubted it. He didn’t seem to care about losing it. Neither was there anything on Sorothom that was worth going to these lengths, wasting the culmination of fate. He’d already used all his treasures to set the stage for his breakthrough. An imperial prince could summon greater wealth with a wave of his sleeve.
Stolen story; please report.
Neither was it a sense of justice. This kid was wet behind the ears, but Sorothom could see the truth plain as day. He was nurturing a devilish heart more fearful than most heretics. He didn’t care the least about heretics or the orthodoxy. So what else was there? Sorothom feared that if he couldn’t figure that out, he’d be led right into an early grave.
“Fate’s coming. The others should be scrambling to add more seals to their name,” Yrin sighed as he dusted off his collar. “I’ve been more interested in the System since the beginning. It wasn’t coincidence or convenience that had it integrate such an important event with an irrelevant frontier skirmish. The causality is far-reaching.”
The prince’s eyes gained a cruel edge Sorothom had seen many times before. The willingness to do anything to accomplish their goals, even if that meant breaking the Law of both man and Heaven.
“Truthfully, I don’t much care about that. The Zenith is still a distant problem. What matters is the hidden benefits of assisting in the System’s undertaking. Until now, most of us have been woefully underperforming in this regard, too focused on the Flameseeking trial. Only the Sangha seems to have understood its will.”
Sorothom was barely listening, throwing everything he had against the seal. Every second it remained, Heaven’s attention grew more focused. Even then, the prince’s parting words as he disappeared in a swirl of Qi may as well have become engraved on his soul.
“I wonder how much my destiny will change after cutting off your future.”
Sorothom roared in fury as the box opened on its own, exposing its empty insides. His aura exploded, crossing dozens of miles in an instant, only stopping short of plunging into the churning clouds. He hadn’t lost his reason to the point he’d so blatantly taunt the Heavens.
The sea of putrid blood finally overcame the seal, and Sorothom immediately took out twelve large crystals. Encased within each was a finger belonging to his descendants whose fate best matched his. He discarded two after a quick scan. While Sorothom had trained them since birth, they weren’t fools. They understood the path of Sacrifice better than most Kan’Tanu.
Aivea and Wirbli had managed to weaken their familial bond. Sorothom doubted their skill had reached the point where they could trigger a backlash. That uncertainty was enough for them to live, as Sorothom couldn’t afford another setback. The nostalgic circumstance even tempered Sorothom’s anger, making him recall the many schemes that let him escape his master’s grasp.
“My children, I require your aid,” Sorothom whispered as he infused streaks of trapped lightning into the remaining crystals.
The containers grew dark red before disintegrating into an obscuring mist, and Sorothom felt Heaven’s attention weaken by a third. It was a step in the right direction, but not enough to survive. The crafty prince already out of his mind, Sorothom sought a path forward. A blade streak of sunlight illuminating the overcast sky provided the answer.
It was a desperate gamble. That had never stopped him before.
—————————–
A pillar of angry red descended, splitting in two to target Zac’s human form still sitting atop the Core Formation platform. He needed at least one person atop the array to keep it running. Having his Draugr half step away didn’t weaken the array much, as it lacked the Attuned Energies to utilize its multi-layer barrier anyhow.
Screaming danger forced Zac to give up on having Kator directly face the bolt. Zac moved out of the way, his body reeling from the item that had appeared in Kator’s hand. Kator did the same, appearing on the chamber’s opposite side. Zac didn’t have the luxury of worrying about Kator’s actions any longer. The second tribulation had arrived.
The temporal backlash that the first bolt couldn’t expunge was swept away. It left Zac with one less worry, though he’d traded one torment for another. The small part of the lightning holding the powers of Law transformed the whole punishment. It tried to erase every aspect of Zac’s path, from cultivation to Dao, even targeting his Longevity.
The pain was something else, but Zac realized he was resisting the desolation much better than he expected. The benefits of his repeated brushes with the Four Desolates were starting to make themselves known. Each encounter left him more aligned with the Four Laws, lessening the damage from their tribulation.
That wasn’t the only reason. The small motes of starlight that had remained unruffled throughout the upheavals were acting as stabilizers, increasing his resilience against having his cells erased by Law. The effect wasn’t too impressive as the motes were simply too small and weak.
At its current stage, it was only a proof of concept that left Zac both curious and suspicious. Figuring out a way to strengthen the motes would drastically improve his resistance against tribulations, alleviating his dependence on the System for his breakthroughs. The stars didn’t even seem to lose any energy to resist the Four Desolates, something Zac didn’t know was possible.
Only, going down that path was like making a deal with the devil. Zac had no idea how or why the stars had appeared in his body after his meeting with Wal’Zo. Had he left them there, or was it Starclad reaching across time? Accepting their presence without getting to the bottom of things could lead to his doom. He hadn’t forgotten the Sangha’s plot against him with the [Boundless Vajra Sublimation].
The lightning acted like a pack of hounds that had caught a scent, with some targeting Zac’s Soul Aperture until he hid his [Void Mountain]. Another chunk veered toward the [Solidarity Link], which had moved to his mangled shoulder after his left arm was destroyed.
The Four Desolates weren’t after the link itself. It was the hourglass that drew its attention, which didn’t come as a surprise to Zac. Esmeralda’s treasure seemed to spit in the face of the Law of Impermanence by anchoring an object to a previous point in time.
The falling grains of sand accelerated when the lightning drew closer, weakening the lightning in return. The price of that exchange was much too steep. If the sand ran out, Zac would lose his greatest advantage against Kator. Luckily, the tribulation was bound by its purpose and reluctantly turned toward Zac’s core, leaving the hourglass safe albeit drained. Whether it could endure the next bolt was anyone’s guess.
The second bolt found its way into his Quantum Space, causing another wave of upheavals. Mounting a concerted resistance was much easier with his asteroid belt circuits protecting his nucleus, but that wasn’t enough to keep him safe.
While holding their position, each piece of debris was still exposed to Heaven’s wrath. Being flawed pieces of the bigger picture, they had a hard time enduring the test. One by one, they disintegrated, each loss weakening Zac’s core and prospects. Grasping for a solution, Zac honed in on the huge amounts of energy flooding the temporary subspace to reinforce his core.
It was the pristine energy supplied by the Cosmos, meant as fuel for the next step of his breakthrough. Out of better options, he borrowed the energy to create a counter-balance to the rampaging lightning. The two opposing sides exhausted each other in an act of mutual destruction. The loss made Zac wince, even if it did more good than harm.
Wasting some of the supplied energy didn’t matter, considering how many pieces of his core he’d lost already. If anything, it alleviated the growing pressure within his Qantum Space. The energy would quickly build up to deadly levels since there was nowhere for it to go until he resumed his breakthrough. And that delicate work couldn’t commence before the tribulation was dealt with and Kator neutralized.
Distancing himself let Kator avoid direct exposure to the tribulation, but he still received his allocated share though the link. He hadn’t been prepared to face a sudden tribulation, especially not one at this level. Clearly, he was even less prepared for one imbued with the punishment of Law. Patches of Warbones were erased, and his aura grew even more erratic.
Time shuddered. The next moment, it looked like the air around Kator imploded to instantly consume all the chamber’s corruption. Zac keeled over as waves and waves of pain were transmitted through the [Solidarity Link], which repeatedly fluctuated until the hourglass had lost almost half its sand. Zac fought back with Void and Vigor, mimicking Kator’s method of restraining the transmission through his own means.
His eyes swimming, Zac saw Kator stepping out of the explosion, broken yet whole. His Warbones weren’t cracked any longer, but the previously smooth surfaces were pockmarked and misshapen. In addition, a lilac pattern had appeared atop Kator’s Warbones, prompting his Killing Intent to inch even closer to the Qriz’Ul. His aura soared, and the whole octagon began heaving as the enormous bone dragon stepped out of the ether.
Zac was still reeling from the combined punishment of the tribulation and [Solidarity Link], but he could only take out his axe and prepare for the next round. The deadly threat before hadn’t come from an attack, not in the traditional sense. Kator had produced a Temporal Chamber identical to those Zac had bought from the Limited Exchange and activated it after the second tribulation had been transmitted.
Only a moment had passed for Zac while Kator had spent a year or more licking his wounds. All while staring at a Zac frozen in time as corruption permeated his bones. The shocks to the [Solidarity Link] no doubt came from Kator repeatedly trying to break the connection. When it’d failed, he’d begun mutilating himself, and it was all transmitted the moment Kator emerged from the temporal bubble. Thankfully, the strategy didn’t appear to be repeatable.
Kator was already exhibiting signs of temporal backlash, and using another temporal chamber so soon would have dire consequences. Furthermore, his twisted bones proved that Kator failed to recover from the Four Desolates even after a year of rest. It looked like not even an Izh’Rak reaver could match the undying resilience that had kept Zac alive all this time.
Facing an even stronger rejection by the Four Laws could cost Kator his life, so he was going all out to deal with the threat at its roots. That was fine by Zac.