Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 411: War

Zac witnessed the battle with a small frown, and the screams and cries of the villagers in the distance felt extremely discordant in his ears. His eyes followed Ogras as he looted the fallen Warrior and even put the mangled remains of his mount in his Cosmos Sack before he returned.

“Why did you have to do it like that?” Zac asked as the demon walked up to them. “You could have won in a head-on fight as well.”

“But the risk to my wellbeing would increase,” Ogras answered with a refreshing smile as he refastened his metal casing around the congealed shadows. “Besides, I knew he would choose to protect the village rather than attack me. Those kinds of bloodline warriors have extremely close-knit communities.”

“Still,” Zac sighed but didn’t press the matter further.

It wasn’t his business how Ogras fought, and he knew that the demon was simply using smoke and mirrors with his shadow-wave, rather than actually trying to kill the children in the village. The demon knew as well as the others that killing innocents would likely cause a real mess.

The still gave Zac a bad taste in his mouth as it reminded him of the Flame Golem’s attempt to kill his army back in the Underworld with the wave of lava. It was an ‘anything-goes’ attitude to battle that was unnecessary in a place like this. Ogras didn’t even push himself to his fullest, and even if he failed Zac could step in to defeat the chieftain.

“That weak heart of yours will be the death of you one day,” Ogras snorted as he looked over a whisk he had looted from the body of his enemy.

“Let’s just go,” Zac said as he turned toward the array, engraving the hateful stares of the villagers in his heart.

“Remember, please hurry,” Galau said as he followed Zac.

“We know,” Zac nodded. “Though I think you’ll do just fine on your own if in a pinch. Your skill with the sword is pretty impressive.”

“Remember, the agreement said 32^nd level, not the fourth floor,” Galau entreated. “And I have the option of buying further levels if needed.”

“What’s the point of that?” Zac asked curiously “We can’t take you past the fourth floor anyway.”

This was something he and Ogras had already decided. They wouldn’t risk their climb by adding Galau to the penalty of the fifth floor and beyond. They would take him to the floor before the floor guardian at highest, and continue alone from there on out.

“He doesn’t want to stay on a bad level for months,” Ogras explained. “Remember the 24^th level?”

Understanding dawned on Zac’s face as he recalled that wretched level. The 24^th level took place inside a swamp teeming with all kinds of disgusting bugs, huge ferocious eels, and pockets of poisonous gases. Their objective had been to find a flower, and Galau had pulled out one treasure after another in order to escape that cursed place as quickly as possible.

“That’s fine,” Zac agreed. “We’ll hurry.”

The fourth floor was like the third, but worse. There was no longer any point in color-coding the flares, as they would almost always be thrown into the thick of it according to the merchant. That’s why the merchant wanted to remind them to not dally around wherever they started.

“About the price…” Galau ventured.

“We’ll discuss it when we get there,” the demon smiled.

Zac nodded in agreement, as that felt like a matter that should be discussed when they got there. What if the 32^nd level was the same as the 24^th? They’d be able to make a killing if that was the case. The three stepped onto the platform as they had so many times before, and Zac once again found himself in the black space.

[Third Floor Complete. Upgrading Title.]

[Choose Reward: Longevity Medicine, Race Medicine, Energy Medicine]

Zac didn’t immediately make his choice, and instead opened his status screen. He had already learned that the black space had an even more dilated time-space. He could spend a few minutes inside with less than a minute passing outside, allowing him to go over the gains before entering whatever mess the fourth floor would bring.

So Zac ignored the prompt with the quest reward and instead opened his status screen.

[Tower of Eternity – 3rd Floor: Reach the 28th level of the Tower of Eternity. Reward: All Attributes +10]

He had already known what the title would reward after discussing it with the other two, but he still felt the title was simply amazing. They had just passed the third floor and the title already gave as large a flat boost as any other title he had accumulated. His other titles giving a similar amount of attributes had required far greater accomplishments than beating three pretty easy floors.

Just take the Eastern Trigram Hunt, for example. He had been pushed to and beyond his limits multiple times, yet that title was only marginally better than the one for the Tower of Eternity. The other one, [Progenitor Noblesse], was given to him for becoming the first Lord on Earth, which only came about after defeating the three hordes.

Even the attribute points given for just defeating the Second Floor had been pretty generous in Zac’s opinion. It had changed the +5 in three specific attributes to +5 to all attributes.

The ten flat attributes didn’t do much for Zac, apart from the boost to his Luck which was notoriously hard to improve, but the boost should be huge for most people who came to the Tower. He knew that the average warrior only had between 20 and 40 Luck all combined, so buying a carry to the third floor could essentially increase your Luck with up to 50%.

Just the boost to Luck was worth almost any price in Zac’s opinion. Better yet, as they progressed they would move on to percentage-based boosts while still keeping the flat bonuses. As long as Zac conquered the 6^th floor the title would be the best one he had, perhaps with the exception of [Luck of the Draw] that provided a huge amount of Luck.

Apart from the improved title there was nothing worth noting in the status screen. His Nexus Coins had increased with a couple of million since he entered the Tower, but that was about it. He felt he was closing in on the limits of what he could gain while remaining in F-Grade. The only thing that remained was the final improvements to his Dao and getting as good a Title as possible.

He needed to at least complete his Life-Attuned fragment, and he felt he had a good chance of doing that through forming the Projection the moment he left the Tower of Eternity. According to Galau the effect of forming a Projection was even superior to witnessing it from up-close, and if he could form one Seed from Reoluv’s apparition, then he would no doubt be able to form another by creating one.

He closed down the screen and refocused on the available rewards since the Title was dealt with.

None of the three medicines would help him in the short run but were rather geared toward providing boosts after evolving. There were no names attached to the pills, unfortunately, not that there was a large chance for him to recognize the items even if the System provided them.

He immediately discarded the longevity medicine, and his eyes hovered between Race and Energy for a few seconds before he eventually picked Energy. He already had enough Race-related pills and treasures to improve his constitution considerably, which would also push his attribute limit far enough for it to not become a problem before he completed the transition.

Bursting open another node though would provide a direct boost to his strength after evolving, and perhaps the pills that the System provided had a lower amount of Pill Toxicity compared to the norm. Though he might just throw the pill into the Merit Exchange by this point. He had already accumulated a decent number of such pills, but there were only so many he could eat before even his sturdy body wouldn’t be able to take it anymore.

He was no good to Earth if he ate so many pills that he became bedridden from the backlash of overindulging on Energy Pills.

The scenery around him quickly changed after he had made his choice, but Zac didn’t even have time to look down at the vial in his hand as the surroundings rapidly darkened while his danger sense activated. Zac looked up to see that a massive boulder was descending upon him. His eyes widened in alarm and he flashed out of the way in the nick of time.

“Wake up soldier!” a gruff roar echoed from behind. “This is no time to daydream! Forward!”

Zac quickly oriented himself, only to realize he was in the middle of a massive battlefield. An allied army of various humanoid races fought what seemed to be an army consisting of devils. They were vaguely humanoid, but they couldn’t be put into the same category as the demonkin as Zac saw it. The felt more like an intelligent beast horde as they came in all shapes and sizes, though uniting them all was the nasty sets of horns on their heads and the thick scales for protection.

Perhaps they were fallen dragonkin, Zac noted, but he knew too little about the races of the multiverse to be sure. But they wielded various weapons, and some also wore armor on top of the scales, so they were likely categorized like cultivators rather than beasts. The large boulder that almost turned him into paste was actually the head of a tyrannical warhammer that was wielded by an enormous twenty-meter monstrosity.

Similar titans could be seen all over the battlefield, and the ground rumbled as they slammed their weapons into the ground or the erected shields of the humanoid armies. What was even more worrying was that these huge devils were clearly out of his league. The auras they emitted were extremely heavy, and Zac guessed they were almost peak E-Grade. It seemed to Zac that the power was almost at the level that the Cyborg emitted toward the end before it shut down.

How the hell would he fight against something like that?

But he quickly realized that he wasn’t alone in this fight, and the burden of fighting these things didn’t fall on his shoulders. A young woman wielding a thin sword that was almost two meters long rose into the sky, and she unleashed a massive swing that seemed determined to cut the sky in two.

A meter-deep gash appeared on the chest of the devil, who stumbled a few dozen meters back while roaring in pain. Similar scenes took place all over the battlefield, with peak E-Grade warriors or mighty war arrays rising to meet the onslaught of the titans.

Meanwhile thousands of warriors filled the gaps between the peak warriors, creating a chaotic battle that stretched for kilometers in all directions. It was a lot less cramped compared to the chaotic fight for the Fruit of Ascension though, as all combatants were a lot more powerful here. The weakest were peak F-Grade, and all attacks caused shockwaves that rippled out for dozens of meters.

“Don’t gawk at the Sword Saintess, brat! Do your job!” the voice from earlier echoed behind him, this time a lot closer.

Zac looked around to see a burly middle-aged dwarf who held two spiked hammers in his hands. He was obviously well into E-Grade as well, and judging by the number of insignias on his chest he was likely someone of a decent stature in this army.

“I’m sorry, I’m going now,” Zac said and hurried away, in no particular direction.

Was this how it felt to fight in an army with warriors far stronger than himself? He had seen such scenes in his visions, but it was a completely different thing to experience it himself. Some fear crept into his heart that he would be swept into the battle of one of the peak warriors, or that one of them would even earnestly try to kill him.

But more than that he felt a rush excitement. Things were finally heating up in the until now somewhat tame Tower.