Defiance of the Fall

taking place aboveground which was quickly consolidating the wealth.

There was nothing of value down here, and he could only pin his hope to Anzonil’s treasure trove.
Zac took a last look around the cavern for anything that might be of value, but as usual it was just disgusting carcasses.

But his brows furrowed when he saw that the leader lizard suddenly started shaking, and the next moment a ghastly specter shot out of it with a screech.
It made a beeline for Zac, its claws already poised to strike.

Zac readied his axe to meet the incoming ghost, but at the last moment, he had an idea.
He quickly moved his axe as he infused himself with the Dao of Hardness.
The ghost unhesitantly tried to rake his chest, but it suddenly shrieked in anger and pain when a copy of itself suddenly attacked it.

It tried to swing right back, but the moment after the spectral projection from [Deathwish] had attacked it turned to nothingness.
The specter seemed completely enraged and tried venting its anger on Zac.

It quickly unleashed a barrage of attacks on Zac, but between his robes, his Endurance, and his Dao it only felt like someone was scratching him.
But the same couldn’t be said about the specter.
It howled in pain with every strike, and the pain seemed to make it even more desperate as it even tried to bite Zac’s head.

’

Zac had to force himself to stay still, and a small stream of cosmic energy the next moment told him his gambit had been a success.
He already knew that [Deathwish] returned the same type of energy as the original attack, though it was formed by miasma, so he surmised that if specters could kill themselves then so could he with the skill.

It turned out he was correct, and it was as though a stone had lifted from his chest.
If he could actually kill the ghosts by just standing still then he didn’t really have much to worry about unless there were some stronger ghosts that they hadn’t encountered aboveground.

The piercing wail came to mind, for example.
Zac had no doubt that being was E-Graded, and he did not want to test whether his endurance or that thing’s power was greater.
It had managed to scramble his brains momentarily from god knows what distance, so he couldn’t imagine a battle in melee range going his way.

Still, it was with newfound vigor he pushed toward the next cave, and the persistent aura of darkness didn’t feel as oppressive any longer.
However, more and more ghosts started to appear in the caves, all of them hiding in the stronger beasts.

Zac surmised that they perhaps were draining the energy of those they possessed, and used the powerful animals as personal feeding grounds.
He already knew that they were in need of Cosmic Energy to survive going by the thousands of ghosts that had assailed him on the mountain top.

The more frequently appearing ghosts proved they weren’t all harmless to him as well.
One had managed to slink into his mind just like the last time, and he barely was able to force it out by madly channeling the Dao of Hardness.

It was lucky too, as the ghost had unhesitantly tried to use Zac arm to sever his own legs with [Verun’s Bite].
It was by the hair that he managed to stop himself from amputating his leg, and sweat was running down his forehead from the close call.

After that he no longer dared to let the ghosts freely have at him, and instead had his eyes peeled in case they tried to possess him again.
The moment he suspected that was what one of the ghosts planned he immediately slashed it with his axe, briefly scattering it and enraging it.

But that also drastically slowed down his speed of killing the things, and it was quickly getting hard to keep track of all the ghosts as they grew more numerous in the caverns.
So worry started to grow as the situation was growing more and more strained.

’

Finally it got so bad that he started wondering whether he even dared to keep going.
Dozens of ghosts were wailing in the cave that once housed yet another rat den.
They were frenziedly trying to get at him, and Zac had to keep running as he sorted out which ones were attacking and which ones tried to possess him.

He already knew that putting his back against a wall had no effect, the ghosts could easily pass through them.
Even his newly attained defensive skill proved useless against the spectral beings, and they simply flew right around it without being impeded.

But suddenly he gained a surge of energy as yet another ghost killed itself by clawing his chest, and Zac opened up his menu like a drowning man.
The surge of power in his body told him that he had finally reached level 50, which meant that he should have gotten a new class quest.

What type of skill he attained and how easily he could complete the quest would dictate whether he would keep going or not.
At this rate, he might get possessed at any moment, as there already had been a few close calls the last caverns.

Indomitable (Class): Attain a high stage defensive Dao Seed.
Reward: Indomitable (1/1)

Advertisements

Zac couldn’t help but get his hopes up when he saw the name, but he refocused on the ghosts and slowly whittled them down so that he could focus on the new skill uninterrupted.
He still waited on a second Dao Vision, since he still had only got the one.

Alyn had told him that higher rarity classes got more Dao visions, but Zac guessed reality might not be that simple when he noted that Indomitable was yet another normal class quest.
Perhaps he had gained one higher-grade vision that awarded multiple seeds rather than multiple weaker ones.

That would in a sense ensure that the seeds he gained would have a good synergy since they came from the same individual.
But whether he was correct or not wasn’t important at the moment, and instead he focused on the skill.
Luckily the quest seemed to count Seed of Trees as a defensive Dao since the quest was already considered finished.
He quickly accepted it and he felt a new fractal taking place in his mind.

Zac was elated since the placement was almost exactly identical to the one of [Mental Fortress], which together with its name gave a pretty clear indication of what type of skill it was.

It seemed his luck had pulled through for him once again.