Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 783: One Shot at Eternity

Alvod looked at the array of items in front of him as he sat in the center of the Ascension Array, his heart beating with a mix of trepidation and anticipation. Four hundred thousand years of preparation, all for this moment. He would either defend his Dao and begin the next step of his journey, or he would turn to dust, as so many had before him.His gaze turned to the chaotic scars that covered the tapestry, and he shook his head with a wry smile. Things had turned out alright, but that young Draugr was a troublemaker of unprecedented proportions. To think that he had managed to form a shadow of that elusive Dao with the help of those two cursed objects. Even more surprising, he was still alive and kicking.

It was no wonder the brat had such confidence in his path. Alvod had always thought it a fool’s errand. But who knew, he might just be able to keep climbing a while longer. Of course, seeing that fragmented Dao didn’t shake his Dao Heart at all. That little animal had his path, and he had his own.

The descent of the System and the hastened collapse of the realm was unexpected, but it didn’t change things overly much. He had lost a year of preparations, but so had those on the outside. Besides, his whole road of cultivation had been bumpy, so why should his ascent be any different?

Thankfully, the two intrusive whispers in the back of his mind had been quieted just before the System descended, which improved his odds of success by at least five percent. Most likely, it was the Draugr who, either wittingly or unwittingly, destroyed the preparations of his fellow imperials while hunting the remnant that Alvod had set loose.

Alvod had figured that one of the two being destroyed by the hand of Arcaz Black would be a good outcome, but he had underestimated the control the Draugr held over Creation and Oblivion. It appeared the masters Arcaz Black mentioned were real, as they must have provided him with something to curtail the madness of the ancient remnants, at least until they could be harvested.

It was time.

Alvod closed his eyes and focused while the array lit up around him, and his Dharma Treasure emerged from his glabella a moment later. The small wooden rowboat rose above his head, forming an illusory tidal wave beneath itself. It crashed against the daybreak, an endless cycle of ebb and flow. It was the herald of the Evening Tide, the harbinger of his Dao.

Next, Alvod threw out the Wheels of the Six Paths, each one of them taking a position on the crumbling tapestry. He couldn't help but once more open his eyes and look at them with mixed emotions. Finding the first wheel of this ancient and heretical Buddhist treasure, the Wheel of Preta-Gati, on his homeworld had completely remolded his destiny.

It had allowed him to defy the heavens themselves as he became a ravenous ghost that fed on the world itself. It had made him unsurpassed and unmatched in might, but it had also set him down a path of tragedy. He became a calamity for his homeworld far more dangerous than any invaders. When he woke up from his stupor, nothing but ruins remained.

Things had only somewhat stabilized when he found the Wheel of Manushya-Gati as well, in the hands of a young woman he had killed in his madness. He even managed to seize a Body Tempering Manual in the Tower of Eternity that more efficiently made use of the unique energy the wheels generated.

These wheels had made him extraordinary. Without them, there was no guarantee he would even have survived the integration. Even if he did, the odds of him reaching Hegemony were slim. Monarchy was but a distant and unrealistic hope. At most, he would have managed to become a local warlord on his home planet at the edge of the Multiverse, destined to never come in contact with the real truths of the universe.

But for all the wheels had given him, they were also the cause of endless suffering. Alvod knew it wasn't just a matter of their value causing avarice in others. The more he made use of them, the heavier his Karmic Debt would become, which maintained the Law of Balance. It had become so suffocating he had been forced into hiding for hundreds of thousands of years, unable to even gaze upon the sky.

Now, mighty foes had gathered to interrupt his ascension, making a nigh insurmountable task even harder. However, with the last two wheels collected in the Havarok Empire and his imminent ascension, things were finally about to reach a turning point. As long as he succeeded, the Six Paths would open, and he would shed the Karmic Debt he had accumulated by severing his chance at reincarnation.

He would only live once, but Alvod was fine with that. One shot at eternity was all he needed.

“I am the holder of the Evening Tide,” he said, and reality shuddered as he imposed his will on the wheels. “The ages turn, Karma dies, and the world is reborn."

The tapestry resisted, or rather the Realm Spirit did. When the wheels had turned one full circle, the Twilight Ocean would be gone, reincarnated as an avatar to his path. Alvod only smiled at the struggle, and his gaze turned to the small chalice hovering in the air, its receptacle filled to three-quarters with Primal Dao.

Seven drops, one for each wheel while the last one entered his Dharma Treasure. The rowboat was already at the peak of its grade, and the infusion pushed it one step further, putting it right at the threshold. Seeing that the treasure held, Alvod grinned his gaze turned to a small clay figurine.

“Life is not life, death is not death,” he muttered as the figurine floated into his hands.

A million dense scripts flashed into being on the small figurine as it started exuding an inscrutable and earth-shattering aura. But that was nothing compared to the radiant display in his inner world, where a ten-thousand-meter-tall statue lit up in a similar manner. An unprecedented storm erupted in his inner world, with the crashing waves reaching thousands of meters in the air.

The small wooden boat became an avatar of the storm as it crashed forward, the eventide churning in its wake. It slammed into the weakened tapestry, causing reality itself to crack. The wheels turned ninety degrees, and Alvod took a shuddering breath as he felt cracks spread across his world. However, he wasn't deterred at all, and his mouth curved upward in a bloody smile as he heard an earth-shattering rumble on the outside.

It had begun.

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“It’s all wrong,” Elou Alu’Valadir muttered with a frown as she gazed up at the churning clouds that were accumulating, covering an area far greater than the whole of the Twilight Harbor. “What should we do, Lord Nether?”

The deep thud of an immensely tyrannic heart echoed out, its power enough to cause ripples in space itself. It pushed into the churning anomaly of the crumbling Daoworld,

The infuriated Realm Spirit was actually collapsing the whole building after having failed to take Zac down. He desperately made his way toward the exit, but even with his movement skill, he knew he wouldn't make it. D-grade Boulders from the ceiling were already raining down on him, and the walls were on the verge of collapsing entirely.

Having a castle fall on his head wouldn't necessarily kill him, but that wasn't the real problem. He had already experienced just how difficult these stones were to break through. Becoming trapped in D-grade rubble would make him a sitting duck for the realm Spirit. One spatial twist and he would be a goner.

Seeing no other option, Zac grit his teeth as infused some Void Energy into two skill fractals, prompting a large leaf to appear in front of his axehead. Two bursts of Mental Energy were squeezed from his drained soul, prompting two clouds to shoot forward just as his path was about to be blocked.

The divide of the Abyss and Arcadia appeared from two vertical slashes, its power almost unstoppable thanks to the Twilight Energy and the fact that space had become extremely brittle by now. Not even the sturdy rocks could withstand the attack, and Zac desperately squeezed through the void, emerging outside the castle in front of two shocked sentries.

Zac only glanced at the two Havarok soldiers as a sea of killing intent rippled out from his body, prompting the two warriors to instinctively step back in fear. Their short lapse was enough for Zac to make his move, which was to heedlessly run away with [Earthstrider]. Behind him, the towering castle completely collapsed.

"You little bastard!" a roar echoed out with enough force to make the whole City of Ancients shake, but Zac didn't even glance back as he fled through the tunnel leading out of the inner courtyard.