Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 631: Judgement

The darkness of the Void was completely pushed away from the skyline littered with fiery spheres and the fires that raged all around Zac. He was about to make his move, but a massive foot flashed right past Zac as an earth-shattering roar caused the ground to shudder. It was Billy who was already swinging his grotesque club like a baseball player, the knobbly skull at its top aimed straight for the descending suns.

The air itself shattered like a broken mirror as Billy unleashed some sort of earthquake-like skill, but that wasnʼt the end of it. Enormous spikes shot out of the ground, each of them stabbing at or blocking another sun. Billy had somehow managed to take control of the Memorysteel itself, and one sun after another exploded in specular fashion.

The explosions were earth-shattering, and Zacʼs eyes widened in shock when they swallowed Billy whole. However, the giant quickly shot out of the flames, golden flames licking his whole body. Burns covered his whole body, but he seemed mostly fine. His hair had been singed completely clean, including his eyebrows, and Zacʼs mouth quirked up when he saw that he had gained a brother monk.

Billy was ultimately just one person, and there were still a huge number of attacks threatening to blow them all to kingdom come. But the shadows of the large spikes unexpectedly detached from the Memorysteel and stabbed into the air, extinguishing one sun after another. An azure tornado swept forward out of nowhere as well, rippling through a series of the attacks that the cultists had launched toward the spatial gate.

It was obviously Ogras and Thea who had appeared, but Zac couldn’t actually pinpoint their position. He guessed they were stuck on the other side of the cultist army, which was just fine considering that it forced the enemy to constantly split their attention.

Still, even with Ogras and Thea joining the fray, it wasn’t enough. There were over a thousand elites from the Church of Everlasting Dao present, and they had spent five minutes filling the glowing orbs in the sky with immense amounts of energy. Their preparations wouldn’t be stopped with one attack or two.

However, a ghastly white spear suddenly shot past Billy’s head to pierce a close-by sun with enough force to actually cause a spatial tear. The crack in space swallowed most of the subsequent explosion before both the spear and the sun were gone in a puff. Zacʼs eyes lit up, realizing that the Anointed’s preparations were done, and they had made their move as well.

He didnʼt really want to waste his second swing of [Deforestation] on the scorching suns, especially when he wasnʼt even sure it would work considering Infernal Axe was partly fire-based. Seeing the Anointed helping out was a relief, but he was extremely confused as he couldnʼt see anything with the vision granted by [Hatchetmanʼs Spirit]. That spear had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

He turned back to see what was going on, and his eyes widened in confusion when he saw the drastic change that had taken place right under his nose.

Who were these people?

It felt like he was looking at two realities at once. [Hatchetman’s Spirit] told him that there were only the monoliths, the small group of Anointed, and the vanguard of the elite army behind him. But his actual eyes were telling a different story as they saw one fierce warrior after another appear atop the pillars.

Each of them was at least four meters tall and radiated an appalling amount of killing intent, something that was only possible after a huge amount of bloodshed. One warrior, in particular, was just shocking. It was at least seven meters tall, dwarfing even the living Anointed. It held a small spear that looked just like [Judgement] that Zac stabbed into the ground, and the air twisted around it the warrior pointed the spear forward.

The hulking Anointed in the front was clearly the leader, and the spectral warriors behind it immediately threw out a barrage of attacks. They almost blotted out the sky as they slammed into the suns, the attacks, and even toward the standing army. Glimmering golden shields erupted in front of the whole zealot army, but even they looked a bit shellshocked by the enormous force contained in the attacks.

The whole sky rumbled for an instant, and Zac could only stare in wonder as the preparations of the Church of Everlasting Dao were ripped apart in an instant.

Each spear almost contained as much power as a swing from Zac himself, and they could easily destabilize one or two suns which quickly extinguished the remaining ones. The cultists found themselves under tremendous pressure as well as cracks kept spreading across the barriers from the powerful attacks.

The soldiers were true elites though, and they didn’t panic or break ranks, but rather kept infusing their shields with more and more power. The bishop also swung a censer in his hand, and the sun above him instantaneously doubled its luminescence. It clearly had a huge effect on the army as the faltering barriers quickly recovered, and new suns started forming in the sky.

The titanic spectral Anointed in the front seemed almost alive as it glared at the bishop with death in its eyes. It threw out the copy of [Judgement] the next moment, aiming straight for the huge sun that emboldened the cultist forces. Zac had his vision blur from the tremendous conviction stored in that attack. It felt like the spear held enough force to pierce the whole mountain, let alone a puny sun.

“Seal!” the bishop roared when he saw the incoming attack, and an enormous sigil wrought in gold suddenly appeared, held aloft by four golden giants.

The twenty-meter tall giants looked harried and tortured, and fetters bound their limbs to the sigil as they hoisted it in front of them. Zac couldn’t tell whether the giants were real or something created with Cosmic Energy. Perhaps they were even corpses that had been turned into treasures. But they radiated an immense pressure, and Zac couldn’t even look into their eye sockets where white-hot runic flames burned.

The sigil was all-too-familiar as well, a perfect copy of the one he had broken over at the cultist incursion. Where it had come from, Zac had no idea, but it was continuously being empowered by the whole cultist army judging by the energy streams he could discern with [Cosmic Gaze].

Zac froze in place as he looked at the spectacle. The Church of Everlasting Dao really had some cards up their sleeve. It was a lucky break that the Anointed managed to force this enormous thing out early-on since Zac felt that he would have been forced to use a lot of effort to break it apart by himself. He could only hope that the effect of the Anointedʼs ultimate strike lived up to the pressure it emitted.

The enormous sigil had appeared right between the two opposing factions, and the spectral Anointed’s spear slammed straight into the core. It was like the world froze when the two forces met, and a painful headache almost made Zac topple over as odd hymns echoed in his mind. Others weren’t any better off, with the demon and Tal-Eladar elites toppling over before they even had a chance to launch their first salvo.

The Anointed and zealots were hunkered over as well, but they were a bit better off. Even the dozens of spectral Zhix seemed to barely be able to maintain their form, but they didnʼt seem content to just dissipate. The ghastly squad shot forward, each of them slowly losing their forms as they approached not the sigil but the giants holding it.

Soon they were just streams of immense conviction, and one hole after another was punched into their bodies as the ghosts sacrificed themselves to take down the enemy. It was just the kind of crazed determination one could expect from the ancient leaders of the Zhix, and Zac immediately seized the opportunity to help out. He had held off on his second strike long enough.

A cascading wave of flames rippled forward and slammed into one of the flanks of the army. He didnʼt dare to attack the giants or the sigil, afraid that his strike would also harm the efforts of the Anointed, but he saw an opportunity to cause some real damage to the army itself. A sea of shadows suddenly swept toward the second flank as well, and the cultist army found themselves beset from behind.

The sea of shadows turned into a churning storm of shadow spears, and it was like a hurricane that kept picking up momentum. Zacʼs eyes lit up when he realized that Ogras was using [Soaring Ocean], the Dexterity-based E-grade skill available in his Dao Repository. More and more spikes kept appearing, and the cultist army was soon beset by thousands of stabs in the blink of an eye.

Each of the stabs didnʼt contain a lot of power, but the barrage was unceasing and ever-growing, creating constant pressure on the army. Together with the inferno that Zac had ignited on the other side, the soldiers were no longer able to reinforce the massive sigil in the heart of the army.

As expected, the fires in the eyes of the golden giants visibly dimmed soon after Zacʼs and Ograsʼ strikes landed, and small cracks spread across the sigil. But things weren’t over just yet. The sigil quickly regained its luster, and Zac started to feel a sense of trepidation.

“Attack!” the bishop roared from the other side of the sigil, and flames lit up over the heads of almost half the army before they shot into the enormous golden runes.

The giants shuddered before they visibly started shrinking like they were being drained of all their moisture. They were turned into desiccated husks in an instant, all their energy absorbed by the sigil as it suddenly hovered in the air by its own power. The spectral spear of the titanic Zhix exploded, causing one final scar on the golden surface before it disappeared.

The crack quickly spread across the whole surface of the golden rune, but Zac wasnʼt sure it was a good thing when he saw some weird energy start pouring out from the cracks. It was like space itself crumbled in front of the sigil as tears started to spread toward him and the portal. These weren’t spatial tears though, but something else entirely.

There wasn’t the void of space inside the cracks, but rather terrifying white-hot flames that made Zac’s very soul shudder from just looking at them. That wasn’t the only thing; the portal behind him actually started twisting from the pressure released from the cracks that slowly crept toward them.

He definitely couldn’t let this continue, so he immediately unleashed the final swing of [Deforestation], imbuing the strike with everything he had. A wave of darkness rolled forward, and one radiant light after another was forcibly closed as the grey clouds of desolation flooded into the cracks. It looked like two wrongs did make a right in this case, as the terrifying cracks were actually destroyed by his strongest attack.

However, even Zacʼs final strike proved insufficient to completely quash the incoming attack. Zac tried to figure out what punishment would be best to use, but the Zhix made their move first. There were just six of the spectral Anointed remaining, including the leader. The others had already sacrificed themselves, and it looked like the last group was about to do the same.

Even the monoliths that towered among the tress of [Hatchetmanʼs Spirit] rose into the sky, and ghosts and graves melded into a huge wave that followed right behind the wave of desolation. The whole area was quickly drenched in silver radiance, but Zac still felt enormous blasts of chaotic energies being forcibly suppressed inside the light. The explosions grew more and more sparse over the following seconds, Zac slowly felt his Danger Sense calm down as the silver light dissipated.

The Anointed behind him bowed deeply toward the chaos, their faces full of admiration. A tremendous explosion erupted the next moment, and the sigil cracked in two as the husks of the giants were ripped apart. A chorus of groans and wails could be heard even through the clamor of the pieces of the rune slammed onto the Memorysteel floor, and Zac knew their opportunity had arrived.

“Attack,” Zac growled with a low volume as he shot forward, a swirl of leaves forming a barrier around him as he pushed through the errant energies.

The golden barrier was down, and the cultists were suffering from the backlash. This was the optimal time to launch a swift and decisive counter-strike. A massive skill like [Nature’s Punishment] might force the warriors out of their muddled state from the massive energy fluctuations, so Zac personally rushed forward to deal with the head of the snake.

A wave of warmth spread through his body, proof that Emily had appeared as well to conjure her totem.

More and more soldiers of his army poured out behind him through the portal, each of them rushing forward behind a vanguard of Anointed. It quickly turned into a multi-race army of elites, and it kept getting reinforced as people flooded through the spatial tunnel. They looked exhausted, but determination burned in their eyes as they rushed into the haze.

The fury of almost getting lost in the void burned in their veins, and they were ready to unleash the stress accumulated over the past hours on the Church of Everlasting Dao.