Defiance of the Fall Chapter 1404: Burden

Zac had grown weary of the endless surprises from the last minute, but he had no choice except to go with the flow. The custom spikes lodged deep in his back proved far more resilient than anticipated. Removing them quickly enough to counter August's takeover seemed doubtful. He required Xiphos's aid, so Zac couldn't let the Enkindling Sage suffer a collapse of the mind.

“You…” Zac attempted in a tone he wished sounded calming. “You know what?”

“Everything, starting from when you summoned the Empyrean Chalice. It felt as though a shroud over my vision lifted, and memories flooded back of what you shared on the beach,” Xiphos replied, his features twisting into a sorrowful grin. “It’s so fragile, so isolated. I grasped the intent of my grandfather's deeds. Now I see why an Enkindling Sage was essential.”

Zac inwardly damned his earlier recklessness with words. He recalled exactly what Xiphos meant. In their confrontation, frustration had led him to reveal it all. Eons had elapsed since the Limitless Empire's collapse, and their reality was merely an illusion. The trial's constraints had blocked Xiphos from catching Zac's words then.

“It’s still not…” Zac paused, reluctant to complete the thought, with Marai’s final warning echoing in his head.

Figures like Xiphos and Astora stayed uninformed for good cause. Probably, excess knowledge might disrupt their revival once the illusion shattered. It could even trigger a divine retribution. Even Grand Elders treaded carefully to dodge deeper ties, so a simple Hegemon would struggle to endure.

Safeguards in the trial blocked those within the Memories from uncovering the reality, yet those barriers seemed frail right now. Without issues, Marai wouldn't have issued that caution. Something afflicted the Outer Courts or Sevona’s domain, and the Empyrean Chalice had clearly nullified the influence on its select.

Though Zac's bond with Xiphos tangled in complexity, the sage had shown up as a savior this round. Repaying that by robbing Xiphos of rebirth prospects would prove heartless. Zac had to devise another method to pull him back from despair.

Xiphos let out a heavy breath, as if reading the turmoil in Zac's gaze. “I know. A faint hope lingers that our kin might gain another shot at existence. And I believe you outsiders serve as key catalysts to unlock that route.”

“Then—"

“Even so, I won’t assist you.”

“What? Why?” Zac demanded, panic rising. “This isn’t the moment for games. I must halt the chaos deeper in! I sense you’re not aligned with the tainted forces. Just pull these spikes from my back.”

Xiphos pondered Zac's plea briefly before agreeing with a nod. The chalice hovering by the roof burst apart, unleashing its leftover blaze. The fire surged across the lobby's top, then spread into halls and rooms. The entire lodge transformed into sacred territory, the blaze's grace empowering Sevona’s divinity to resist more fiercely.

Yet the gathered fire fell short of reversing the tide. August’s presence leaking from the Hall of Abundance had dipped slightly, but it surged anew. The offering granted mere minutes at best. That sufficed for Zac. Even without more from Xiphos, he trusted he could expel the spikes with this extra window.

Xiphos showed no intent to contribute beyond that. Instead, he faced the fire orb that hadn't pursued Kaltosa Lu in his flight. Zac had glanced at it casually earlier, but now his gaze sharpened at the sight within. A primordial rune of the Elemental lay captured, pierced at its core. Its fragments melted under the heat, its ancient power absorbed and woven into Imperial Fate.

Lompo had nailed it precisely. Kaltosa Lu escaped with Descartes’ token and a portion of Zac’s Imperial Merit, but at a heavy toll. Zac questioned if the exchange balanced out. Each lost Primordial Rune inflicted an enduring blow on the Centigrade Elementals, diminishing their lineage a touch.

“What happens here pales against my duty. I’ve revealed my identity. I am the Enkindling Sage of the Order of the Empyrean Chalice,” Xiphos declared, grasping the mass of sacred fire. He faced Zac again, eyes sharpening. “I’ve also realized your true nature, why a bond formed from our first encounter. You were selected as our Holy Son, likely the final one.

“But the flame doesn’t ignite in you. You’ve erected barriers, rejecting our sacred charge.” Xiphos offered the fire to Zac. “The moment has arrived for your choice. Embrace the duties of your role, and I’ll grant strength to shift the balance. Deny it, and the Empyrean Chalice will cut its ties to you and all you’ve influenced.”

The implied menace shone obvious. Zac would forfeit his position, and Xiphos would withdraw the support sustaining the loft. It resembled a rear guard abruptly abandoning post. Idiche would suffer a rebound, allowing August to claim the Divine Core entirely.

“This is coercing me into your fold,” Zac growled, teeth clenched.

“You offer few options. You grasp our heritage's perils better than most. Moreover, what value do your beliefs hold if you won’t stake your life on them? If so, why not aid our cause,” Xiphos retorted.

“Accept the responsibility? I don’t grasp what that entails,” Zac muttered in frustration.

“Nor do I. Your origins must seem alien to me. Still, the flame will light your way, guiding you to fulfill what’s required,” the sage affirmed with total assurance.

The vague reply offered scant reassurance, but the phrasing stirred familiarity in Zac. It echoed tales of the Remnants he’d encountered. Scattered across the multiverse, they’d appeared repeatedly after he claimed the initial batch. In under a decade, he’d gathered every one.

Some stemmed from the System's designs, aiming to reclaim Chaos motes for the Havens. Yet more lay in the remnants' ability to steer their bearer's fate, nudging toward Atavism. Accepting would bind Zac's path to the Empyrean Chalice. His Void Road might have already prevented that twist.

Zac resisted claiming the Empyrean Chalice's legacy, yet time slipped away. Deep down, he’d suspected this path loomed. Invoking the Limitless Emperor’s aid carried inevitable repercussions.

“Alright, I’ll shoulder your mission or whatever it is. But know this: I cultivate my own Destiny. I can’t bear Imperial Fate,” Zac stated openly.

“I understand. The chalice chose you regardless, so who am I to question?” Xiphos chuckled, relief shining in his eyes. “Thanks for preserving the flame.”

“Now what—” Zac’s words cut off as Xiphos burst into fire.

Unlike Kaltosa Lu’s inferno, this resembled the sage morphing into a living beacon, yet holding his might and shape. He channeled his core into the swelling fire while kneeling beside Zac. As his right arm merged with the fierce blaze, Xiphos pressed his left palm to Zac’s brow.

A soothing heat, vastly intensified from earlier, coursed through Zac’s frame. It felt like retreating to a primordial cradle, one forged in a divine chalice cradling a civilization's dreams. Injuries closed, flaws erased, and the back spikes burned away cleanly.

Zac underwent rebirth as a figure fit to bear fate's burden. Initially, dread gripped him, mind flashing to the snare in [Boundless Vajra Sublimation]. He feared Xiphos aimed to mold him into a mindless defender of their realm, a genuine Eternal Guardian. Fortunately, the shift acted as a sweeping refinement via exalted grace.

Immobilized, but merely while integrating the fire. His cognition remained untouched, no Faith encroaching on his way. Rather, it converted to raw, foundational forces adaptable to any body or spirit. Less striking than the Tribulation Throne, yet Zac knew the thrill of edging toward flawlessness.

“Your route defies the Heavenly Order. The Imperial Flame will soften some wrath, but its aid will fade as you progress,” Xiphos murmured, by then the fire and his figure halved in vibrancy.

Yet he pressed on undeterred.

“What are you doing?!” Zac exclaimed in alarm. “You could still—”

“No chance for me, or my kin. We’re bound to the Empire’s Karma. Altering fate demands sacrifice. Rescuing us would rob myriad souls of hope. Let us serve as the barriers that sheltered lost spirits for ages,” Xiphos replied with a soft smile. “Rejoice for me. My sacred task is done. The light passes on, and the blaze reignites.”

As Xiphos withdrew his palm, he appeared spectral and dim. Approaching the barred entrance strained him. Stretching his left limb, half his form vanished. His body's fire had scripted the Empyrean Chalice's emblem on the blue barrier. The powers collided, forcing the lunar glow to yield.

A secure passage emerged, and Zac itched to charge. But abandoning Xiphos in this state? Xiphos hadn’t demanded such a divide.

“The mountain,” he whispered faintly.

Zac signaled via [Purity of the Void], summoning the [Fuxi Mountain Gate] to his grasp. A quick probe revealed no trace of the brush inside. Zac prayed it had been retrieved, not ruined by subspace foes, but questions waited.

Zac proffered the Void Treasure, wincing as Xiphos infused his remnants and the fire into its golden scripts. Not fortifying the formation, but a fleeting surge. Zac sensed the pull on ambient forces, and Xiphos’s final utterance sealed it.

“Press this to the rift.”

“Thank you,” Zac uttered as the final sparks dimmed. “I’ll strive to keep the flame alive.”

“A simple fix exists if the bestowed fate overwhelms,” Xiphos’s echo drifted from afar. “Reestablish the Order of the Empyrean Chalice, and shift the burden to them.”

“How in the world am I—” Zac shook his head, then blurred into a shadow of demise.

Ambivalence captured Zac's turmoil over Xiphos's self-offering to temper him in sacred fire. Beyond salvaging the lodge's crisis, benefits already pulsed without deeper probe. The change deepened his harmony with the Four Laws—a minor boon if Xiphos’s vow against Tribulation Lightning held. Zac shied from imagining the doom awaiting his inner world's birth.

Still, it arrived unbidden, laced with obligations. His burdens already overflowed. Pledges bound him to the Abyssal Shores, and Sanctuary called before Heavens hunted Kenzie. Now the Empyrean Flame's aim weighed on him, no trivial matter. Likely, it tied straight to the Limitless Emperor’s grand design.

Zac recalled the heavenly revolt demanding his focus first. He dashed through the portal, met by a flood of blue in the Hall of Abundance. The azure moon loomed above via a vast round skylight. Like a colossal gaze intruding, fixated on the suspended core at the chamber's heart.

The moon's craving manifested as a beam of light aimed at the Divine Core. This shaft bathed the space in lunar glow. Crucially, it sustained a steady rift mere feet over the prize. It harbored a potent fusion nearing Peak Continuum, but Zac caught a Void hint within. No surprise Xiphos urged the [Fuxi Mountain Gate].

A twisted limb's image protruded from it, halting short of the goal. Idiche neared the Divine Core from across. She hovered below it, its shade her bulwark against avarice. Rather than claiming it, she fed power into the core. Her defense maintained a fragile divine layer barring August's grasp.

Esmeralda remained unseen, yet her role shone evident. Six Grand Traversal Toad effigies ringed the rift. They projected intense spatial force, glaring at the breach. Esmeralda's work likely contained its spread.

Zac surged forward once situated. He sped beyond the statue line, mountain gate ready to impale. Then the toads' jewel eyes flared, loosing a unified spatial surge. As if August’s limb banished to another realm, Zac seized the breach.

He drove the [Fuxi Mountain Gate]'s edge into the rift like a primal strike, unleashing a deluge of chaotic forces. Fresh gashes tore across Zac’s limbs, half the statues shattering. Such trifles barely registered, not with the Empyrean Chalice's fire still kindling inside.

By the time Zac aligned the [Fuxi Mountain Gate]'s mouth to the rift, his cuts had sealed. A fierce quake nearly wrenched the Void Treasure free, but August’s aura waned swiftly. Success brewed; Zac just endured without his form crumbling under the quakes.

Resistance from beyond intensified as the rift contracted. The mountain gate thrummed with delight. August's struggles funneled more power to its inner realm. Vibrations cracked Zac’s arm bones endlessly, organs rupturing. Zac's mind brimmed with gripes and mild shame. Did his allies endure this during his wild ascensions?

“Get lost!” Zac bellowed, voice laced with pain and irritation.

Didn’t August grasp defeat? As if sensing Zac's inner cry, the rift exploded shut with a crack. Zac’s hands lay ruined by then, and the [Fuxi Mountain Gate] slipped away. The treasure crashed into his skull before he blinked, plunging him into void.

Zac awoke sprawled on the floor. His skull throbbed as if struck by a locomotive, and moments passed before he noted half a day's blackout. Grimacing, he probed a swollen lump on his brow. With his stats and layered physiques, such a scratch should have vanished ages ago.

Blame the [Fuxi Mountain Gate]? Its density outmatched Zac's possessions. He'd pondered it as a shield against lethal blows, and wielding it as a club promised devastating impacts.

A chuckle rose from his side, revealing Esmeralda lounging on cushions with a relaxed air. Her back vats stood nearly drained, but she seemed unscathed. Zac had fretted over sin's dense taint warping her psyche, yet it took more to unbalance an ex-Supremacy.

“Morning, sluggard,” she teased with a smirk. “You’re turning into a true dragon, complete with that horn.”