Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 626: Denizens of the Void

Zac didn’t know whether it was lucky or unlucky that the terrifying creature went straight for him, but at least it would prevent the normal warriors from bearing the brunt of the terrifying creature. He quickly threw Emily to a side passage as he readied himself for battle.

“Attack it from a distance,” Zac shouted before he charged up [Rapturous Divide]. “It can’t survive in this dimension for long. The more we damage it the quicker we’ll be able to destroy it. “

A golden cloud entered the huge maw the next second, quickly followed by a black cloud imbued with the Fragment of the Coffin. A perfectly straight scar in space was ripped open, but Zac was shocked to see that it barely had any effect on the creature. The spatial divide had actually split the creature in two, but it almost looked like Zac’s attack was just an illusion.

There were no wounds, no nothing. It was like spatial tears had no effect on the Void Beast. Zac figured that he perhaps shouldn’t be too surprised considering that this thing usually lived in the folds between dimensions. The other warriors didn’t fare much better as pitch-black barriers that looked like small tiles of onyx appeared at the tip of the creature's legs, effortlessly swallowing any attack that came close. Only the Anointed managed to launch strikes with enough force to cause some minor cracks on the defensive shields, but they were repaired as quickly as they appeared.

Zac guessed what was going on and he quickly activated [Conformation of Supremacy], this time imbuing the skill with the image of the supreme shield. The creature was almost upon him by now, but Zac didn’t back away. Less than half of his people had passed the bridge by this point, and if Zac didn’t block now, then the bridge would be exposed to the Void Beast.

He couldn’t let that happen.

A growl escaped Zac’s lips as he rushed forward, meeting the beast head-on. His axe was empowered by the weight of the supreme shield in the avatar, and he swung it in a heroic arc right at the bottom of the beast's face, right beneath the massive mouth that reminded Zac of the Collector’s maw. He was hoping to crush its jaw and perhaps cut off a few of its legs in one go, but a huge barrier appeared to block its whole face, if one could call a large vortex a face.

Zac only hesitated for a second before he infused the strike with the Fragment of the Coffin and swung with all that he got. He didn’t really fear the beast itself, but rather the way that it had made all the attacks just disappear, like it was conjuring portals to the void. However, Zac felt there should be some limits to an ability like that, especially when he attacked in person and infused the strike with a Dao Fragment.

The world shuddered for an instant as the edge of [Verun’s Bite] hit the large barrier, like he had somehow been misaligned with the surroundings. But his vision quickly turned back to normal as a large crack spread across the black surface of the shielding. Zac didn’t get any chance to celebrate or follow up on his initial swing though as the creature slammed into him with the force of a runaway train.

His all-out swing hadn't even stopped the creature in its tracks, and Zac found himself completely overpowered.

A fiery axe shot into his body from the distance as Emily boosted him with her Strength-improving Axe. Hundreds of attacks also harassed the caterpillar to the point that it was completely engulfed by a blinding chaos of radiant Skills. Yet those shields kept swallowing everything while keeping the Void Beast safe, and it seemed completely intent on taking him down.

The only reason Zac didn’t get slammed into a wall, or even worse shot through the corridor and into the Void, was that he hurriedly launched the four chains of [Love’s Bond], each of them turning into anchors in the wall or the floor to stop him from getting pushed back. The chains were able to hold him in place, but that essentially put him in a vise that threatened to crush him.

He gripped the handle of [Verun's Bite] with his second hand, both his arms shaking from exertion. But it was simply impossible to force the Void Beast Back. Its short legs dug deep grooves in the Memorysteel ground as it kept the pressure up, and released more and more of that pitch-black smoke.

The cloud emitted a strange pressure that made Zac feel extremely uncomfortable, almost like when he had pushed his hand into the void. Even worse, there seemed to be no limits to how much of it could spew out from its gullet. Zac didn’t know whether the creature released it to lessen the burden of normal space on its body, or if it was meant as some sort of weapon.

In either case, it was poison to Zac, but he was unable to extricate himself. He was just ten meters from the corridor leading outside, and soldiers were still streaming across the bridge and into the square. Backing down would mean those people getting stuck. But he also wasn’t strong enough to force the creature back in his current state, so he could only push his worries aside as he activated [Hatchetman’s Rage].

The air twisted around him power surged through his arms, and the painful pressure was no longer so taxing. Zac shoved at the creature with everything he had, and he actually managed to force the Void Beast back a bit. It wasn’t much, but it gave Zac the breather he needed to launch another swing, this one empowered by his berserking skill.

The barrier cracked like a mirror in an instant, and the axe bit into flesh. However, a sense of annoyance flared up in Zac’s chest as his momentum suddenly disappeared the moment it touched the body of the caterpillar, making his all-out swing look like a slight love-tap.

Zac quickly realized the attack was more powerful than it seemed though as the legs on the creature’s back twitched, and a weird distortion rippled through its body before it returned to normal. Zac’s eyes lit up when he saw that his attacks were working, but he didn’t have the opportunity to launch another swing before his Danger Sense overpowered the furor brought on by [Hatchetman’s Rage].

A crackling ball of pure energy had formed inside the Void Beast’s abyssal maw, and Zac desperately veered out of the way, barely allowing him to dodge it as it shot out like a slow-moving cannonball. An extremely powerful suction ripped into his body, and Zac's eyes teared when he felt a piece of his chin actually being torn off and swallowed by the ball as it passed through.

A bloody wound on his shoulder was opened up as well, but at least he had managed to dodge a surefire kill. That terrifying ball definitely had the power to crush him into a meat cube and swallow him whole. But Zac still regretted his course of action when he remembered that the corridor and his people were on the other side.

What if the ball hit the bridge? The Memorysteel definitely couldn't take the force that hid in that attack.

Thick earthen walls thankfully rose from the ground the moment Zac dodged as Rhubat and a group of Anointed conjured one defensive barrier after another in an effort to block the sphere. It thankfully didn’t move very fast, but it was simply unstoppable in its advance. Massive holes appeared in the barriers as the ball simply ate them.

But Zac's eyes lit up when he saw that the ball had shrunk by a small degree after swallowing five enormous barriers in a row. It looked unstoppable, but it ultimately had the same weakness as all skills; it had a limited amount of energy. It could be exhausted.

“Keep attacking! Fill it!” he shouted, and a storm of flames, earth, and all sorts of objects flew toward the Void Ball. Someone even took out an SUV and threw it into the void ball, and a creaking sound echoed out as the attack swallowed the vehicle whole.

Zac was about to help out, but he sensed that the creature was gearing up for another attack, and he definitely couldn’t let that happen. The first ball had already made it to the corridor by that point, and it had actually swallowed a few people who were able to move out of the way because of the thousands of people desperately trying to pass the bridge.

After all, a thirty-meter Void Beast was scary, but not as scary as being left behind on a soon-to-collapse island in the void.

Zac felt the terrible energies brewing inside the mouth of the creature, and he knew he had to risk it. The chains of [Love’s bond] detached from the wall, as he stomped down on the ground. The creature saw the change and it started to push again, but he narrowly managed to stay in place by overexerting his legs.

Meanwhile, the chains of [Love's Bond] shot forward and snaked around the hulking creature before Zac gripped them with his free hand. He desperately yanked at them with all he had, and it was barely enough to overpower the thin legs and slam the creature into the ground.

A shockingly large club appeared out of nowhere, the knobbly skull striking right on top of the creature's head to compound Zac’s own hit. It was Billy who had woken up from the commotion, and he had already activated his Titanic form. Billy’s attack was simple and crude, but it contained a shocking force that caused another series of ripples to spread through the creature’s body. More importantly, it interrupted the Void Beast's accumulation of its second attack.

The creature tried to get up, but Zac furiously dragged the creature back into the ground again as he lambasted it with dozens of strikes empowered by [Conformation of Supremacy]. The first strikes were completely absorbed like the first one, but its body started to twist and bend like it was a mirage.

Zac suddenly managed to rip off a large section of its head after having launched almost twenty strikes and a weird sticky goo started dripping from the massive wound. The Void Beast's blood didn't pool at the ground though, but it actually floated in the air like a cloud. A second thunderous smash from Billy hit the caterpillar in the middle of its body, giving Zac a chance to glance at the situation behind him.

The Anointed had thankfully dealt with the void sphere, but the chaos had activated the defensive measures of the corridor. The Anointed were forced to fight against the frenzied defensive algorithm, desperately trying to contain the damage as to not let the whole corner of the island fall apart.

There were thankfully still a lot of warriors inside the square as hundreds of strikes slammed into the Void Beast. Each of them carried just a fraction of the power of a single one of Zac’s own swings, but when added together it turned into an unceasing avalanche that forced the creature to expend more and more energy to stay safe.

A high-pitched wail escaped from its mouth as the creature started to madly thrash and twist, and the force threw Zac into the air. The creature seemingly saw its opportunity as it started forming another void sphere, but Zac only grunted as his Cosmic Energy surged into his forearm. The huge wooden hand appeared a moment later, but it didn’t actually conjure the emerald array this time.

The hand instead directly gripped the creature, its wooden fingers digging deep into pitch-black flesh. It had been a long time since Zac used the hand to physically fight for him instead of conjuring one of the punishments, and he was shocked at the power of the grip. It was like space itself was breaking apart as the fingers squeezed tighter and tighter.

The Void Beast thrashed even harder as it tried to break away, and vast clouds of pitch-black gasses covered it. But it was undeniable that it was in a bad way since its body kept distorting to the point it was barely recognizable by now. Zac was still flailing about in the air since he was connected to the creature through the chains, but he forcefully pulled on one of the fetters, launching him straight toward the caterpillar.

The whole Memorysteel floor cracked beneath the creature as Zac swung his axe once more, and a second shudder followed suit as Billy hit again. It was only then that Zac realized that Billy was using some sort of ramping skill like his own [Deforestation].

The third hit had taken quite some time to charge up, but it was tremendous, even eclipsing his own strikes. Certainly, Zac was using a skill that he could launch over a dozen times in the blink of an eye, but it was still shocking considering he had over five thousand effective Strength. For Billy, an F-Grade warrior, to match that kind of power output was astonishing no matter what kind of restrictions that skill had.

Billy’s enormous slam was the straw that broke the camel’s back and Zac felt a huge surge of Cosmic Energy entering his body, confirming the kill. The Void Beast didn’t collapse on the ground though, but it rather looked like its body was slowly phasing out of reality.

“Haha! Billy is finally 75!” Billy exclaimed with a wide grin, and Zac noticed that dozens of people had wide grins on their faces.

It looked like everyone had a pretty good harvest for participating in taking down a Half-Step D-Grade creature. Their contribution was extremely limited, but the amount of energy from killing a level 150 creature Half-Step D-Grade creature was obviously massive. And while they hadn’t actually hurt the creature, they had at least helped expend its energy by unceasingly attacking it.

A sudden thump from his chest gave Zac a start, and he was surprised to see that his [Void Heart] had suddenly awakened even when there weren’t any foreign energies rampaging through his body.

There was definitely something inside the dissipating cloud that his hidden node wanted to eat.