Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 880: Stranded

“I’ve already destroyed that seal and the energies have mostly been expelled,” Zac shrugged as he took out his dried meat, inwardly praising the efficacy of Ryan's and his associate's creations. Every mouthful felt as filling as stuffing his face with a couple of kilos of meat, saving him a lot of effort and time. He had been hungry for hours by this point, and the last fight had pushed it to the point it felt like his ribs were digging into his stomach. It was a somewhat annoying side-effect of [Adamance of Eoz], but it was worth it.

In a heated battle like this, the node increased the durability of his Cosmic Energy by over 20%, which allowed [Empyrean Aegis] to withstand that treasure sword. Looking a bit silly and gluttonous was a small price to pay for such a boost.

“What are you- No, you can’t just-“ Vai said as she scurried closer with a set of unfamiliar gadgets in her hands. “That blood curse had been nurtured by a Hegemon. There is no way you can just remove it yourself.”

“Not so fast,” Zac grunted as he levied [Verun’s Bite] at Vai while he continued eating.

“Please, let me check on you! The longer you wait, the worse it will get,” Vai said, tears once more pooling in her eyes from anxiety.

“Not before you tell me your real identity and why you know about blood curses for some reason,” Zac countered. “You are hiding something – you might even be another traitor like that friend of yours. Unless you can dispel my fears, we’ll be parting here.”

“No, I’m not! I- I- You,” Vai sputtered, her brain seemingly short-circuiting from trying to both defend herself and urging Zac to let her treat him.

Eventually, her eyes shone with determination as she took out a small crystalline sphere from her Spatial Ring. It looked like a little ball, but it emitted spatial energies that contained a level of Dao that was far beyond anything Zac had seen before in the Void Star, even from the cortex. It was crammed full of energy as well, and it felt like a hundred [Void Balls] had been pushed together into one terrifying megabomb.

“What’s that?” Zac frowned as he flashed over fifty meters away with [Earthstrider].

Thankfully, Vai didn’t throw the thing at him. Instead, she infused a bit of Cosmic Energy into the ball, prompting a dense spatial wall to spring up around her. It looked extremely sturdy, almost like it had created a pocket dimension completely separate from this layer of space. It reminded Zac a lot of the methods the Orom used to create nigh-impenetrable barriers.

“I’m really part of the Void Gate," Vai said after she deactivated the bubble. "This is how I survived the chaos. It’s a sphere that holds a finite amount of a Monarch’s energy."

Zac slowly nodded at her to continue, inwardly realizing he had forgotten an important danger in the Multiverse. Most of his excursions were controlled by the System. The Tower of Eternity, the Twilight Ocean, the Sovereignty-quests – they all had restrictions on the equipment trial takers could bring, while the Orom World had its own set of rules that were even more stringent.

This was the outside where anything could happen. Zac still remembered how he’d almost died to Salvation long ago because he had an amulet with a wisp of The Great Redeemer’s soul. That weird blood curse just now could also be considered that kind of outside tool that wouldn't necessarily be limited to the level of his enemy. Going forward, he needed to be more careful about these kinds of things.

Certainly, these self-contained items generally required time and effort to create – a Monarch would have to cut off a piece of their soul to keep that massive amount of energy in check. They wouldn’t do something like that just to make a little bit of money, but they might leave something for a promising descendant.

“I’m not a descendant of a Monarch, I came from the outside,” Vai explained when she saw Zac’s expression. “When I was accepted by the Void Gate, my only blood relative – my sister – was moved to one of the mortal worlds of the Void Gate instead. She had no talent for cultivation, unfortunately, and she passed away just sixty years later.”

“Her constitution didn’t even have the capacity to reach E-grade,” Vai sighed. “The same was true for her children and grandchildren. When they passed, I distanced myself from my mortal descendants. It was too painful to see one generation after another die.”

Zac inwardly sighed as he heard her story. This was the fate of cultivators, and a reason so many at the top became detached. They stopped looking at the young of their clans as individuals because they couldn’t deal with the constant deaths. Ninety percent of those they saw on the streets would die during a single retreat of secluded cultivation. One day he, too, would possibly reach a point where he barely recognized any of his subordinates.

Learning about Vai's origin was interesting, and it explained why she had been so angry when she thought he was planning on stealing donations to the public schools. However, it didn't explain why she was running around with an extremely powerful treasure ball that only the most treasured scions would get to use.

“Much later, a distant descendant of my sister was born, and she had far greater talents than I. When she was born, thousands of spatial creatures came to greet her, and she was immediately adopted into the Void Monastery. Today, her name is Leyara Lioress.”

“What?” Zac exclaimed. “You’re lying.”

Vai quickly shook her head as she took out another item, this one an information crystal. However, there weren’t words recorded, but pictures. In the first picture, Vai and a young girl were sitting in a garden. The girl seemed to be around ten years old, but Zac could still make out some familiar features.

One image after another followed the first, all of them showing Vai and Leyara as the latter gradually grew into the stunning beauty he met in the Tower of Eternity. Zac looked at the transition with marvel. The long lifespans of cultivators made for some odd imagery. The first picture made it seem like Vai was the big sister or perhaps even a young mother, but the last image made it look like Vai was the younger sibling. She was a constant while Leyara kept changing.

Of course, that was just a small fleeting observation drowned out by the surprise of them having a common acquaintance.

The world was truly full of coincidences. Zac had chosen to avoid contacting Leyara out of security concerns since he had no way to contact her without exposing his identity, and he had feared he would be killed long before his message ever reached her. But now, it turned out he’d been traveling with Leyara’s great aunt for months?

“I didn’t even know she existed, but she first visited me around two decades ago,” Vai said with a smile as she carefully stowed away the communication crystal. “She was a bit lonely, I think, so the Void Monastery sent her to me. So, when little Lara heard I was entering the Void Star, she sent me some things to keep me safe. That sphere was made by the Void Priestess herself.”

“If you had such a backer, why did the others treat you almost like a secretary?” Zac asked with confusion, remembering how Vai seemed to be solidly in the lowest social rung among the small group of re