Defiance of the Fall

he peak.
He felt it viable to place his manor on the peak now that he’d ruined the pattern that had formed in the sand.
But where?

Should he superimpose his manor on the main temple? That should be the end-point of all the energy gathered by the ten thousand ghost temples on the slopes.
Or would that create problems without any benefits? Was there a better spot to pick?

Zac slowly walked across the peak, passing through the center, the side temples, and eventually, the main temple.
As he walked, he tried to understand the energy flows without letting himself be influenced by the whispers of Samsara.
There was certainly something going on here, even if he didn’t sense any threat from the spots taken up by the ghost temples.

Something was wrong.
It was incomplete.
Eventually, Zac ended up where he started, having made a circle across the peak.

“So, are you happy with this spot, or do you want to keep looking?” Null asked.

“One second,” Zac muttered, frowning as he looked across the sands.

He was at the cusp of understanding, but he wasn’t quite there.
He even conjured the monastery several times with [Void Zone] to see if he had missed anything.
Then it hit him.
Zac’s eyes turned to the left, to the building most likely to be a Library and a Dharmic Repository.

“Truth,” Zac muttered, his eyes turning to the zen temple on the other side.
“Balance.”

The Buddhist Sangha was made up of Nine Mountains, representing the seals on the Heavens.
Eight Temples, each representing a peak elevating the Dao.
Four Oceans for the Eternal Laws.
And finally, one paradise, the heart of their belief—the ultimate destiny.
Zac’s eyes turned to the main shrine, his instincts telling him it represented the Law of Cosmos.
That left one side and one law; Impermanence.

A suitable place for a guest on the mountain.

Zac’s eventually walked to a spot he’d noticed before, opposite the temple.
It wasn’t in the middle nor at the edge.
It was one-third to the center from the side where he started.
A spot with a slight depression in both energy and truth.
He deactivated [Void Zone], letting the temples fade to nothingness.

“Let this spot be the core of my manor.”

“This…” Null hesitated.
“Are you sure? It seems like you are standing on a fault line.”

“I’m sure,” Zac nodded.

“Okay,” Null said.
“But don’t use your weird skill to knock me out.
It’ll make the impartment fail.”

’

“Alright,” Zac nodded, and he saw a familiar network of lines spread out from his feet in every direction.

From the ground, a fourth temple rose.
A temple wrought from stone, steel, and the colors of his Dao, rather than the red wood of the ghost temples on Mount Illumination.
Zac felt like he was raising a banner of defiance in enemy territory, proclaiming his arrival.
The response was immediate.

The whole mountain shook while the energies kept rising to unprecedented levels.
In just seconds, Zac’s surroundings reached levels of truth he’d only encountered on extremely rare occasions.
Such as when he pushed Void’s Disciple out of the heart of the Dimensional Seed or when the valley of the Twilight Chasm went crazy.

And it kept climbing.

Zac gasped upon seeing both the temples and the immense Buddha appear in the sky, and he groaned upon feeling the radiant sun in its eyes trained on him.
He wanted to run away, to activate [Void Zone], but he roused his faltering determination to push back.
Instead of depending on his Bloodline, he reinforced his heart.

“Ka!” Zac roared again as he started the [Void Vajra Sublimation].
This time, he didn’t stop with the first cycle but kept going toward the next, while desperately holding onto his path.

He visualized himself being the Void, only taking what he needed from the Heavens while keeping the rest out.
But the Dharma was relentless, replacing the whole cosmos.
Zac fought tooth and nail as he went from one stance into another, but his bubble of security kept getting smaller while his heart grew exhausted.

Zac took out one Cosmic Crystal after another, and the equivalent energy of a Hegemon’s Cosmic Core was released as Zac crushed them in his hands.
Anything to create imperfections in the terrifying pressure that was bearing down on him.
But his feeble attempts at disruption only became kindling to the Buddhist storm that had been conjured.

The calm nimbus had turned into a hurricane, dragging more and more energy out of the mountain.
The Dao was so condensed it started to affect reality.
Millions of golden marks appeared in the air, naturally forming Dharmic Scripture, while various phenomena danced over the monastery.
And bad became worse as Zac sensed something else.

A presence unlike the others was starting to form within the main temple in the distance.
It felt like a heavenly descent, like a Dharmic Guardian was gradually taking form because of the storm.
The apparitions covering the peaks were just there to herald its arrival.
Zac felt despair upon being exposed to the perfection it was.

It was game over if that thing was allowed to emerge from the temple.

“It’s done!” Null’s voice suddenly echoed in his mind, and Zac almost cried in relief.

Any more, and he would have to run for his life, even if it meant giving up on his base.
He wasn’t confident that even [Void Zone] could withstand what was coming.

“Exit?” Zac gasped, and a red gate lit up.

Zac didn’t know where it led, and he didn’t care.
He jumped through the gate, running for his life.

The deafening hum of the Buddhist Sangha was completely cut off the moment he was teleported.
Zac took a shuddering breath as he got to his feet, feeling like he’d just escaped divine judgment.
That had been way too close.
He had realized that the formation on the peak was incomplete, missing a flag in one of the four cardinal directions.
The golden nimbus rotating around the peak was most likely leakage from the imperfection.

’

Zac had figured it was a trial of sorts.
To unlock the true potential of Mount Illumination, he would have to complete the mountain-spanning array with his manor.
He had been correct, but he hadn’t expected the activation would lead to such a huge reaction.
Hopefully, it was just a temporary outburst as the array was realigned, and by the time he returned, the mountain would have calmed down.

For now, Zac was alive and well.
If anything, he was even more optimistic about the Perennial Vastness after his brush with death or ordination.
Zac couldn’t be certain, but his treasure sense told him there was an opportunity hiding on Mount Illumination.
Something was generating all that providence on the Mountain.
Perhaps a treasure?

Even better, if he could encounter something so shocking at a starting location, what about the high-grade environments you had to pay to visit?

He looked around, realizing he was standing in a doorway leading to an eclectic city where each building had its own unique and distinct features.
On the opposite side of a twenty-meter-wide road, a cavelike building stood.
It didn’t have any windows like most of the buildings on the street, but it had open sits between sets of stalagmite pillars, allowing him to look inside.

Right above the entrance, a complex mesh of red lines formed a raging flame; a fire-attuned blueprint for a Cosmic Core.
Had someone placed their blueprint for the world to see?

“This is…?” Zac asked with a hoarse voice.

“This is Vastness City,” Null said, sounding slightly worried.
“Are you okay?”

“I’m good,” Zac smiled.
“Was a close one, though.”

“But what about the future?” Null asked.
“You’ll have to live there.”

“Don’t worry, that should’ve just been a temporary storm,” Zac said.

“Still.”

“This is a bet on myself,” Zac explained.
“If I give up in the face of adversity like that, how can I aim for the peak of cultivation?”

“I know,” Null muttered.
“But try not to go too crazy.
The Perennial Vastness is full of dangerous places.
One mistake, and it’s game over.
For both of us.”

“Hey, I’d love to stay out of trouble,” Zac wryly smiled.
“Unfortunately, trouble has a way of finding me.
Besides, that’s the only way to get powerful.”

“Maybe it’s not too late to put in for a transfer…”

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