Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 187: Hatchetmanʼs Rage

As Zac drove the car through the Dead Zone Kenzie told him much about what happened to her during the six months since they last saw each other. As for Zac, he was a bit hesitant to speak about his experiences, as there were two others in the car.

Lyla was obviously one of them, but before they left Kenzie was approached by one more person. The other girl was Olivia, and he actually somewhat recognized her. She was one of Kenzie’s old friends, and he had met her a few times before the fall. Apparently, the two only found each other again a month ago, and Kenzie invited her as well to Port Atwood.

Her story was pretty impressive, as she’d done something similar to himself. It turned out Olivia had been traveling just like him when the fall happened, and she got randomized to a town a month’s travel away from Kingsbury. Just like Emily and her parents did, Olivia almost immediately set out on a journey to find her way home until she heard about the cultivators in Kingsbury.

Unfortunately, none of her family were cultivators, so they were likely either back at Greenworth, or wherever the other parts of the city had ended up. Since she met Kenzie she decided to stay put for the time being. Zac was a bit surprised she tagged along, as it would likely be easier to get back to Greenworth if she stayed in the town.

Then again he realized it might be his fault, as anyone even slightly related to him might get into trouble as a result of his actions. Perhaps he could send her back with Julia later, so Olivia could hopefully find her way back to her family.

Kenzie clearly trusted them, but Zac had learned to be cautious so he spoke very little about what he’d been through. He only explained that he found himself on an island and through a lot of battle managed to create a town.

The two in the back seat seemed a bit wary of him still, and he couldn’t blame them after his display yesterday. They mostly sat quietly in the back seat, only responding when talked to.

It took two days until they got back to Mount Everlasting Peace, and Zac was relieved to see that nothing had changed since he was here a week ago. He had been afraid that an undead attack was imminent due to the movements he saw, but the monastery was as tranquil as usual.

As they arrived the same old monk who led him up the stairs the last time walked forward.

“Amithaba patron. The Abbot sends his regards,” the old man said, placing his hands together.

“Greetings venerable,” Zac said with a small bow as he put his car into a Cosmos Sack.

He had been a bit embarrassed as he didn’t know how to address the monks in his earlier visit, so he also looked it up while he waited for the trial to start. There were still a lot of things he didn’t know about Buddhist conduct, but at least he shouldn’t disrespect the monks by mistake.

“I guess patron wishes to use the teleportation array?”

“Yes,” Zac said. “I am staying here for a while though.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Kenzie asked with some confusion.

“Not just yet. I need to head into the Dead Zone for a few days,” Zac answered.

This was something he’d decided on earlier. There really wasn’t much for him to do back home in Port Atwood. His next goal was the Hegemon quest, but there were a few weeks left before its time limit was up, and it was the same with the Treasure Hunt.

Since Kenzie was safe he could finally breathe easily, but it also meant he needed to look forward. He was currently only one level to level 60, which hopefully would provide him with a skill that increased his overall power.

Besides, he hoped he could cull the numbers of the undead horde a bit, which hopefully would give the monks more time to prepare themselves. It was the least he could do from how much they had helped him.

He wasn’t comfortable with taking the three with him since he was heading toward the core, and who knew what would happen. Now that his wound was healed and his bead was under control he felt much more confident and wasn’t afraid to cause some havoc. He was pretty confident in his ability to keep himself alive, but the same couldn’t be said for the girls.

He’d already used his inspection skill on the three as part of him making sure they were not shapeshifters, and both Kenzie and Lyla were level 33, which was quite impressive. It seemed they’d pushed themselves pretty hard since Harold had been lusting after them for months.

Olivia was almost as impressive, reaching level 32 without having access to an incursion for a long time. Those who traveled were constantly put in harm’s way, so it wasn’t too surprising that they gained power quickly.

“Oh, and I brought a lot of Springroot as well. You should have everyone coming to your monastery eat this. It is not dangerous to humans, but to certain invaders itʼs deadly,” Zac said.

“Amithaba. Patron needs not to worry about the lizard people. Their disguises cannot block the sight of the Abbot, as karma is not something that can be hidden behind a transformation skill,” the old monk said with a laugh. “One of them tried to infiltrate the monastery some time ago with no success.”

Zac could only gape in response, throwing a glance up at the mountain top. The old Abbot was truly full of mysterious means. It also meant that the Abbot was only humoring when Zac told him about the shapeshifters earlier, as he already knew about it.

“Give people this when you go through,” Zac said as he handed his sister an envelope. “There are a lot of knowledgable people at Port Atwood. Go find Alyn if you want to become stronger.”

“You’re dumping me here and immediately go on an adventure? Are you already tired of us?” MacKenzie said with a snort as she turned to the old monk. “Can you believe this guy?”

Zac only shook his head with a smile, as he knew she was just joking around. Soon he’d opened the teleporter leading to his town, and saw the three off. After saying his farewells to the old monk he set out toward the core of the Dead Zone.

The next few days Zac kept a frantic pace as he scouted out the inner area of the Incursion. On the second day, he found a zombie horde quite similar to the one he got the quest for earlier. There were around 150 000 Zombies, all stumbling toward the center like the horde before it.

It made Zac realize the horde from earlier wasn’t an isolated incident. The undead were truly gathering. It filled him with some hopelessness, as there were just too many zombies in the Dead Zone. Conservatively counting there should be at least a billion people who were turned. Even if Zac kept swinging away for years there would still be plenty of them to go around.

The only good news was that he still hadn’t spotted a single high tier undead at least during the last two days, meaning they likely had receded back toward the core again. He didn’t know if it was thanks to him killing the Corpse Lord, but in any case, it was good news.

Still, Zac didn’t hesitate to head down and start cutting them down by the dozens. He didn’t need to keep a frantic pace since he had no time limit this time to hound him. Therefore he simply summoned a large fractal edge from [Chop] that he kept attached as he methodically kept swinging away.

Large amounts of nexus energy kept entering him, and as before it was joined by large amounts of miasma. However, Zac was happy to note that even though the bead still accepted the deathly energy it wasn’t going out of control this time.

It took far less miasma from each Zombie, and the large amounts of life-attuned energy in the core kept the balance even though the miasma was increasing at a steady pace. Only when roughly 60% of the core was made from deathly energy did he feel that the core started showing signs of instability.

By this point he’d mowed down at least 20 000 zombies, bringing him closer to the next level. However, not wanting to cause a scene again he stopped his rampage and quickly distanced himself from the furious zombies.

When he’d created some distance he quickly took out the seed from the lotus flower and sat down for two hours to restore balance. Only when he was back at an even split did he once again get to his feet. It wasn’t difficult to find the zombie horde again as they didn’t move too quickly, and Zac once again went to work.

He repeated the process a few times until he finally sensed he passed the boundary and reached level 60. Not wanting to waste more time on these weak targets he quickly distanced himself one final time and took up his status screen.

Name

Zachary Atwood

Level

60

Class

Hatchetman (F)

Race

Human (E)

Alignment

Port Atwood - Lord (Earth)

Titles

Born for Carnage, Ultimate Reaper, Luck of the Draw, Giantsbane, Disciple of David, Overpowered, Slayer of Leviathans, Adventurer, Demon Slayer I, Full of Class, Rarified Being, Trailblazer, Child of Dao, The Big 500, Planetary Aegis, One Against Many, Butcher, Progenitor Hegemon, Core

Dao

Seed of Heaviness - Middle, Seed of Trees - High, Seed of Sharpness - Early

Strength

329

Dexterity

162

Endurance

230

Vitality

197

Intelligence

90

Wisdom

85

Luck

93

Free Points

3

Nexus Coins

57 703 653

Zas he looked at his screen he couldn’t help wonder what others would say if they found out he made 7 million nexus coins from one day of grinding. Of course, it was only possible since the Zombies were gathering up into large clumps.

For once Zac hoped that he could count on humanity’s greed and that there were tens of thousands of zombie hunters out at the moment desperately killing zombies for the almost free money.

Zac put his 3 points into vitality, bringing it past 200 as well. By now he started to feel a bit set with that attribute, making him think of what to focus on next. He would have to talk with Ogras or Alyn about it, but perhaps it would be prudent to put some more points into his last two attributes, Intelligence, and Wisdom, as both were starting to severely lag behind.

However, that wasn’t what he was interested in at the moment, so instead, he quickly brought up his quest panel. He wasn’t surprised there was a new quest on the screen, but he was quite surprised when he saw the progress.

Hatchetmanʼs Rage (Class): Earn ”Butcher” Title. Reward: Hatchetmanʼs Rage skill (1/1) [COMPLETE]

Zac couldn’t help but sardonically smile when he saw the class content. Perhaps it was quite a number for normal cultivators to kill 100 000 creatures, but he passed number that a long time ago. It was pretty clear it was an offensive skill judging by the name of the skill and how to complete the quest. This suited Zac just fine, and he only hoped it would be good for single targets.

Since the quest was marked as complete he only needed to get back to his Nexus Crystal to turn it in. With that he closed the screens and refocused on what to do next. He knew that he hadn’t really accomplished much apart from lining his own pockets, but then again he simply couldn’t find more valuable targets to kill.

He had been traveling for two days already and was some distance into the core zone. If he kept going he was afraid he’d end up in the headquarters, facing more than he could handle at the moment.

The incursions had stabilized long ago, which meant that they had some more functions. They were able to set up certain arrays for example, and Zac wasn’t knowledgeable enough in that regard to dare get too close. The undead were extremely wealthy, and he was afraid he’d get trapped in an illusion array or something similar, becoming a sitting duck.

Since there was not much else to do he simply turned back toward the mountain. When he finally came back to Mount Everlasting Peace he initially wanted to say goodbye to the Abbot but was disappointed to find he was in seclusion. With nothing else to do he headed toward the teleporter.

The array was actually down at the foot of the mountain, rather than up in the temple, which had surprised Zac a bit.

“I hope I’ll see you all again,” Zac said. “Remember, if things get out of hand here you can always come to Port Atwood. Even if the mountain is lost we can reclaim it.”

“If heavens wills it, we will meet again patron,” the old man said with a kind smile as the portal flashed to life.

“Here is a small offering to your temple. I hope it will come to use,” Zac said and handed over a pouch.

It contained a wide variety of pills and a large pile of Nexus Crystals. Zac hoped it would help their war efforts in case they got attacked again, at least to the point they managed to evacuate.

“Thank you, patron. The Abbot is currently unavailable, but he asked me to convey a message. ‘To forgive is not to condone other’s actions, it is to bring peace to your heart’. Safe travels patron,” the monk said and once again put his hands together.

Zac didn’t say anything as he left with a nod, the portal flashing shut behind him.