Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 1256: Taking Control

The octagon's aura of stars and enduring faith was poison to the corruption. Dense plumes of Dead Dao were pulled out of their bodies to be incinerated as they entered. Streaks were even dragged out of Zac's pores, much to his surprise. He thought he'd absorbed everything into [Purity of the Void], but some had clearly managed to embed itself without his notice. It was nothing compared to the large amounts of purple mist pouring out of the still-unconscious trio wrapped in his chains.The intense pull of fate from the sun called on Zac's attention, and a voice of caution in the back of Zac's mind stopped him from rushing headlong toward it. Trying to take the Flamebearer seal now would be no different than a moth flying into the fire, literally. The sun perfectly positioned inside the octagon's center was the real deal, even if it only spanned ten meters across.

Zac was almost certain it was a linked copy of the sun powering the Centurion base. The energies it contained were blinding, far eclipsing the suns New Earth orbited. Entering would instantly turn him to ash. Furthermore, hundreds of solar flares covered almost the whole chamber. Tough, oddly enough, they sprung from arrays on the ground and entered the sun rather than the other way around. It made time appear to be moving in reverse, except there were no hints of Temporal Energy.

Their group would have been dead already if not for the installed arrays. The octagon was transforming the flares, removing the scorching heat they ought to have radiated. Faith transformed them, enlisting their intense power for its own purpose. However, approaching the spire could potentially trigger hidden defenses, turning the benign streaks into fingers of death.

The seal being out of reach didn't bother Zac. It'd be his after finishing the Flamebearer quest that tasked him with lighting the Centurion Beacon, which had to be done anyhow. He took in the chamber in

All the while, Ra'Klid was covered in blood, holding off a swarm of puppets. He was trying to buy the time necessary to activate the sword. Like the others, they weren't fighting for treasures. The sword was the Array Heart of an incredibly powerful weapon. Joanna was trying to fight back against the attackers, and Zac could even sense streaks of Lifeforce leaking from her murderous aura.

Seeing the others going above and beyond washed away the pain and exhaustion. Zac moved like a wrecking ball through the web of flares until he reached the innermost layer of light, the data transmitted from the central tower. Suddenly, he saw their attackers as clearly as if they were climbing the spire right before him.

One was roughly at the middle point, resisting waves of Faith and Stellar Wrath to reach Zac's location. The other was much further down, digging into another section. It was from that region Zac felt another familiar thread, and Zac's teeth itched from fury and alarm upon realizing the second Foreign God was making its way toward Vilari.

The Mentalist was locked in an invisible struggle against something sinister brewing inside a puppet. Zac couldn't even take in the form of the refined God, so anxious from Vilari's unstable aura. She was reaching her limits, and the shockwaves from the Foreign God digging through the tower walls separating them were like hammers to her soul.

The only thing on Zac's mind was to activate the beacon and awaken enough puppets to annihilate the miscreations that were threatening the lives of his people. His fury was overwhelming, transforming the accumulated faith and giving it a vengeful purpose. Zac placed his hand on the spire, imbuing it with his intent and authority.

A powerful presence descended on him. Zac didn't shy away, instead glaring up at the blinding sun. "The enemy has returned. Awaken!"

There was only a brief hesitation before the first of the outer circles lit up, the one representing 'his' Lighthouse. The streaks of sunlight had been replaced by a roaring bonfire reaching dozens of meters in the air. Zac grunted as he turned to the next array. Activating the outer tower felt like cutting off a part of his soul. He pressed on, bringing a second, third, and fourth online with sheer determination.

However, an unexpected situation made him stop in his tracks.

Their group wasn't the only ones in the base. A cultist so powerful he twisted the solar flare's information stream was standing inside the fifth outer tower. He was in the middle of breaking through a reinforced barrier, not bothering with subterfuge in the least. Fleshy tendrils spread for miles and miles into the surrounding corridors, completely overwhelming the Qriz'Ul and base defenses.

The cultist was in a different section than the torch, but he was wreaking havoc to the point it was destabilizing the whole tower. Yet the barrier was holding on, and Zac soon realized why. The halls inside were the Centurion Base's Ascension Chamber, the location where the project's leaders tackled their bottlenecks. As such, its resilience was far beyond the rest of the base, perhaps even eclipsing the octagon's.

The cultist was clearly aware of what was inside. His aura was continuously rising, meaning he'd started the process of upgrading his Inner World. Worse, Zac actually recognized the cultist from one of the top-secret recordings he'd received from the Everfast Monarch. The intruder was none other than the Kan'Tanu Pope.

Zac had suspected he might be lurking in the area after seeing the unusual amount of activity in the Imperial Graveyard's depths. He'd never trusted the Alliance's assurances that he'd been wounded enough to force him into seclusion. As expected, the pope was alive and well, and he was about to ruin their plan.

The Kan'Tanu leader's aura was so overbearing that Zac couldn't tell whether he was a Peak or Divine Monarch. It didn't much matter. Either was so far beyond their level there was no fighting back. More importantly, the ascension of a cultivator with such monstrously fell Karma was bound to trigger a calamitous tribulation.

The Centurion Base was struggling to come online, and the Foreign Gods were adding insult to injury. The grand formation had a good chance of collapsing entirely if it also had to assist in a Heretical Cultivator's Dao Defense. That might even be his plan, killing two birds with one stone. He'd sacrifice the base to overcome an impossible tribulation, ruining Zac's plan along the way.

Zac wouldn't allow that to happen. Not when the lives of his people were at stake. Seeing the pope who'd caused so much suffering to his people and Zecia only exacerbated Zac's anger. The seal floating above his head was only a distant thought at this point.

Foreign Gods, popes, and everyone else who came between him and completing the mission—the Centurion Base would become their tomb.