Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 629: Final Stretch

“This is the final stretch, keep going!” Zac shouted as he urged the warriors around him to keep running.The faces of the soldiers were pallid masks of exhaustion by this point, but they kept putting one foot ahead of the other as they gripped Nexus Crystals in their hands. The last ten hours had pushed them to their very limits even though they weren’t the ones who carried the main burden of their mad dash.

The problem was the increasingly sparse Cosmic Energy. It kept getting worse, to the point that there was barely any left at all by now. Just maintaining a superhuman speed was a constant source of drain, and with battles peppered in these people were running on fumes by this point.

After all, most of these people didn’t even have a tenth of Zac’s monstrous reserves, and the fact that they were cultivators didn’t help in the slightest in this energy-sparse environment.

But there was no option but to keep going, even if they were out of strength. They were all-too-aware of the situation. They had heard the crashing sounds of collapsing islands coming ever closer. They had seen the huge golden flames at the foot of the mountain, causing a shocking chain of destruction that ended with a whole section of islands being decimated.

And their platform was next.

There was only a vast emptiness to their left when they crossed the last bridge. The neighboring islands were all gone. It was lucky that they had decided to run diagonally across the islands in an attempt to reach a more western point of the mountain. Otherwise, they would have already been thrown to the void.

Part of Zac had even considered picking up his sister and make a run for it, but he knew he would only be harming himself if he did that. There were just so many barriers in the way as they crossed the islands, anything from walls they needed to punch through to gates that needed to be hacked.

There were even thousands of battlebots that still roamed the inner islands like the whole base hadn’t gone up in smokes, immediately attacking upon spotting his people. If Zac had left the others behind he would long have run out of energy by this point from the constant expenditure. That by itself was suicide since there was a hostile force waiting at the foot of the mountain.

The only lucky break, if you could call it that, was that they had only been attacked by one more Void Beast as they ran, and this one was roughly at the same level as the caterpillar from before. They had completely overwhelmed it with a furious assault before they set out again. There were a few times that a claw or an appendage appeared out of nowhere to snatch a few people though, but there wasn't much Zac could do about it.

It looked like the smarter Void Beasts were content with staying outside the islands, with the dumber ones falling through the protective film. After all, the whole Mystic Realm was crumbling. The Void Beasts only needed to wait for the last islands to crumble and gobble up everyone who was launched into the darkness.

Zac couldn't help but wonder about the fate of the True Sky Faction and the New World Government. The first islands that collapsed should have been roughly in the area where those factions resided. If the New World Government were still stuck at the outer sectors of the base they were definitely dead by now unless the spatial tunnels back to Earth still worked even in this environment.

It was a big blow to Earth to lose that many elites, but Zac didn't have the luxury of worrying about others. He had kept running ahead with rotating elite squads to pave the way ever since the weakness from using [Hatchetman's Rage]. They cleared the corridors of automated sentries, laser traps, bugging walls, and all kinds of dangers.

These forays allowed the weaker of his followers to just focusing on keeping up, and the army usually caught up within minutes of Zac's elite units setting out. But Zac knew the truth. Every time the bulk of the army caught up, there were a few people missing. This had turned into a true death march, and some people simply dropped down on the ground with their reserves completely drained.

Zac knew it, the soldiers knew it, but no one spoke about the fallen people that formed a trail of suffering across the past five or so platforms. They could only look ahead, praying that they would be able to cross the final hurdle before it was too late. Zac was in full panic-mode by this point. It had been over an hour since the last set of islands collapsed.

It felt like the floor beneath his feet could collapse at any moment as he was launched into the void. This was the innermost section of the re

Kenzie nodded and walked over to the very edge of the island before she started tapping away at her console. The Anointed had heard their conversation and they formed a protective circle around her to let her work unabated.

More and more of his people streamed into the broken square, but they stopped in their tracks when they saw the vast chasm between the island and the mountain. A few of them simply slumped down on the ground with eyes devoid of hope, while others looked to Zac for salvation. They hadn’t heard the conversation between him and his sister, but they could clearly understand the severity of the situation.

“Don’t give up! We will open a spatial tunnel to the other side,” Zac roared as she looked at the exhausted army. “I know you are tired, but there is a hostile army on the other side. We’ll need to take them out if we want to live. I’ll lead the charge, but I can't do it alone. I need the assistance of all of you. Prepare yourselves.”

Thousands of faces lit up when they heard they still had a shot at survival, and the whole square lit up as people frantically started absorbing energy from Nexus Crystals. They all knew who was waiting on the foot of the mountain. Many had even fought against the crazed cultists before. They knew they were in for a tough fight, and every extra morsel of Cosmic Energy might be the difference between life and death.

“Everyone, eat a Springroot provided by our people, right now,” Joanna added from the side. “Anyone who hasn’t eaten one in one minute will be executed. If you see someone faking or exchanging it, immediately report it.”

The Valkyries reacted instantly, each of them taking out a Large bag of Springroot as they walked through the ranks. Everyone quickly ate the root without hesitation, more than used to this procedure. A commotion erupted as a Zhix suddenly tried to break off, but the warrior was cut down by his brethren before he could even take a step.

A similar scenario happened a moment later, when a human cultivator stealthily tried to swap out the provided root with something he had hidden in his sleeve. The moment he was exposed he tried to flee, only to get crushed by a close-by Anointed.

Zac had no idea when those two shapeshifters had snuck into his ranks, but he guessed it was sometime during the dash toward the end. Everyone had already been forced to eat a Springroot the moment they set out toward the first bridge, at which point a few cultists had been exposed as well according to his sister.

There had been no time to continuously test everyone as they ran for their lives though. Which had allowed a few of them to blend in with the others.

Seeing that everything was dealt with Zac sat down the next moment, gripping a D-Grade Nexus Crystal in each hand as a storm of Cosmic Energy entered his body. There was only so much he could replenish in a scant few minutes, and he estimated he was only 40% full by the time that Kenzie shouted.

Zac opened his eyes and saw a large vortex at the edge of the platform, seemingly fused to the exceedingly thin defensive film. The Spatial Drill was hovering in the air in front of it, constantly releasing a powerful beam into the hole. Kenzie had also pushed two odd spears into the ground on the sides of the vortex, and Zac guessed they were there to maintain the tunnel as soon as it was finished.

“What’s going to happen next?” Zac asked as he walked over with [Verun’s Bite] in his hands.

“The drill should reach the other side in a minute or so,” Kenzie said. “At that time, space will be directly connected between our two sides. You can't let the cultists blow up the gate though. The drill is running on some weird spatial energy, and it only has fuel for this one attempt."

"I'll deal with it," Zac nodded as his eyes turned to the cultists waiting on the other side.

They had clearly figured out that his people were up to something, and they were making preparations of their own. Zac's tightened his grip as he took a deep breath. He was exhausted but he could only forcibly rouse his body to meet the challenge.

It was time to exterminate these lunatics once and for all.