Defiance of the Fall Chapter 1416: Lord of the Underworld

Darkness enveloped the Hollow Chasm. Although the swirling clouds attempted to extend their reach into the void, the Earth stoutly resisted Heaven’s intrusion. A flickering, ominous crimson light illuminated the jagged edges, revealing the blood-red contours of countless shadows. For a fleeting instant, Zac perceived as if a legion of a billion warriors had emerged from their resting places to defy the wrath of Heaven.

This impression vanished as the clouds surged, preparing to discharge the initial bolt. Zac sensed no Laws embedded within the lightning, yet its potency vastly outweighed anything he had endured merely hours prior. He stayed his hand; Ogras was not one to gamble his neck out of vanity, and his composed, rigid posture signaled that he possessed a contingency.

Eerie, mournful wails echoed throughout the chasm as Ogras fully unfurled the [Shadewar Flag]. It swelled to cover dozens of meters, blossoming into a canopy of gloom. An entire realm seemed to be concealed within its depths, though it remained fundamentally empty and spectral.

Nine wraiths manifested from the banner. These were not the expendable spirits typically summoned by cursed relics, like the ones Ogras had sacrificed within the Hidden Earth Abode. These captives were the genuine denizens of Ogras’s private purgatory—heretics and assassins who had all violated the four cardinal laws.

Because only its authentic prisoners endured, Ogras seldom employed the [Shadewar Flag]. The restrictions surrounding their deployment were severe, and Ogras risked tainting his Karma if he violated those decrees. They had surfaced only a handful of times, such as during the skirmishes with Kan’Tanu Cultists or Qriz’Ul. Yet, Zac observed that the ghosts appeared somewhat altered from before.

Much like the giants of Avīci, they were hollow, yet not entirely devoid of essence. A fragment of destiny, a faint spark of hope, still lingered within them. The specters barely weathered the punishment, despite manifesting only a fraction of the true wrath. Curiously, this endurance underwent a transformation in them that Zac found impossible to articulate.

The incorporeal thralls evolved from being indistinguishable from one another to possessing distinct traits. One grew in stature, its form splitting into what resembled a zweihander or perhaps a ruler. Another hunkered down as its limbs elongated, sharpening into blades that throbbed with barely checked carnage.

Were these specters reclaiming the visages they held before being ensnared by the flag? Zac felt an instinctive apprehension, sensing this development headed down a troubling path. This transformation was merely halfway complete before they were retracted into the banner. Zac only managed to confirm their fragile thread of fate remained intact before a new cohort of wraiths was conjured.

The second bolt descended. Its sheer fury compelled Zac to retreat a pace before Tavza isolated their vicinity with an Abyssal domain. Three wraiths failed to survive this assault, leaving small singe marks scattered across the flag. The primary force of the tribulation had breached the flag’s hidden world, and the heretical weapon strained to withstand the onslaught.

The vanquished wraiths were obliterated, their forms dissipating as their final shreds of providence were relinquished back to the cosmos. Bizarrely, the clouds appeared to seethe with even greater rage at this tribute. The air in the chasm seemed briefly vacuumed away before a third, concluding tribulation struck. Zac was certain it was the finale, as the obsidian clouds had exhausted their reserves to manifest mere slivers of the Four Desolates.

A voice intruded into Zac’s consciousness just as he reached the brink of intervening. Even a composite lightning bolt like the one plummeting into the chasm surpassed the standard punitive scope of the Heavenly Dao. Still, Zac had shared every detail of his own Law-imbued tribulations with Ogras. Seeing his companion remain resolute, Zac felt obligated to honor those wishes.

That confidence lasted for less than a heartbeat.

“What in the…?” Zac muttered, bewildered, as an immense entity emerged from the banner.

The colossally sized goblin, wreathed in nine elite specters, undeniably mimicked a supersized K’Rav, yet Zac sensed a deep-seated wrongness. The spirit’s form matched, but its aura and energy fluctuations harbored countless inconsistencies. It was a chaotic hybrid of shadows and phantasms, with each unique aura echoing a powerful beast from Zac’s recollections.

The goblin had somehow integrated the bloodlines of Ogras’s [Spiritlock Physique], though it remained unclear if the demon himself constituted the nucleus. The spirit’s fundamental core was saturated in the gloom of Avīci. It flickered between K’Rav and Ogras, between reality and illusion.

Between the quick and the dead.

The Law-imbued bolt struck before Zac could decipher the situation. A corner of his mind noted that the chasm’s ability to dampen the Four Desolates was noticeably inferior to its defense against the Heavenly Dao. For Zac, who had already confronted lightning manifest from pure Law, attaining Peak Hegemony here would yield negligible rewards.

Zac’s primary concern remained whether the K’Rav-Ogras chimera could withstand the Four Desolates, or if survival was even a desirable outcome. Ogras’s physical vessel had remained catatonic since the ordeal commenced. His destiny was entwined with the flag to a degree surpassing Zac’s own link to his spirits, leading Zac to suspect Ogras was forced to bear a portion of the agony.

Lightning flooded the chimeric goblin, and Zac watched helplessly as waves of annihilation swept through its frame. The Cosmos sought to reclaim its stolen property, and segments of the spirit were methodically erased. Yet, Ogras maintained his own methods of endurance. Truths and falsehoods inverted, and life was snatched from the very jaws of extinction.

New appendages manifested only to be destroyed in a relentless rhythm. The specters chosen to absorb the impact lacked such adaptability. One by one, they disintegrated until only a single wraith persisted. A swarm of shadowy fireflies enveloped the specter, sacrificing themselves in succession to shield their master from the brunt of the assault.

It was a standard heretical maneuver for distributing tribulation, though these fireflies were clearly tethered to the specter’s current state. It engaged in a grisly process, hacking away portions of its own flesh to safeguard its core, and it proved effective. The lightning spent itself shortly before the ghost crossed the point of no return.

A massive influx of energy surged from the earth, forging the specter anew. Zac even detected faint traces of Law in the bestowal. A leader for the remaining prisoners had been forged. The mysterious Tool Spirit had managed to endure the primary bolt by then, triggering the most significant endowment yet.

The magnitude of the Hollow Court’s gift was staggering—dozens of times larger than Zac’s own, containing genuine snippets of Law. Zac couldn’t help but experience a flicker of envy. While advancing his Earthly Dao was exactly his objective, he had lingered at the threshold for far too long.

Zac’s nirvanic rebirth accelerated his path, conserving several Dao Fruits. Monetarily speaking, it totaled no more than 10,000 Imperial Merit. The total reconstruction of the [Shadewar Flag] and its inhabitants operated on an entirely different scale, rivaling top-tier tradable opportunities.

Tavza’s conflicted expression mirrored his own thoughts. Was this the reward for arriving first, or had Ogras manipulated the court’s recognition? Or perhaps... Zac had a sudden realization as he recalled the spirits shorn of providence. The flag harbored many prisoners.

Was this a question of equilibrium? Exactly how much Fate had Ogras surrendered to the Eighth Hell?

Zac pushed aside unhelpful speculation as [Verun’s Bite] manifested in his grip. Nearby, Haro’s vines slithered inward, stopping short of inviting heavenly wrath. The mottled spirit had survived the final punishment, and the heavenly clouds were reluctantly dispersing, leaving behind a gasping entity with a perfectly unified aura.

The bloodlines of the [Spiritlock Physique] had been distilled to their prime elements, fused with Ogras’s path and the racial boons of the Ra’Lashar Goblins. The latter proved more valuable than anticipated; a topic recently discussed that had opened his eyes thanks to Tavza’s historical anecdotes.

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Like humans, most goblin subspecies lacked extraordinary talent; they relied on sheer volume to compensate. Only one major difference existed between these low-tier races: while humans served as perfectly balanced generalists, goblins naturally drifted toward extreme specialization.

Typically, this merely resulted in being clever but physically frail, or vice versa. Occasionally, accounts emerged of tribes pushing these advantages to absurd heights through coincidence or sheer obsession. Long ago, a Hobgoblin tribe boasted such superhuman strength that they grappled with Titans and Star Beasts, while other goblins became the Multiverse's premier inventors.

Yet, such specialization functioned as a double-edged sword, fracturing their psyches and destabilizing their society. The collapse of the Ra’Lashar Kingdom was an inevitable outcome, not a freak anomaly. Because goblins tended to crumble from within, reaching the multiverse's pinnacle was nearly impossible.

For instance, the God-slaying Hobgoblins of the early System days were more dense and aggressive than most low-grade beasts. Convinced their bloodline was unmatched, they waged war against the Starbeast Alliance the moment their leader attained the rank of Autarch. A solitary Star Beast, ancient even before the Dark Age, devoured their entire civilization in one bite.

For this reason, even Peak Factions in the heartlands avoided the only A-grade Goblin Empire; no one wished to be dragged into oblivion when their society inevitably went supernova.

The fact that the Ra’Lashar Goblins ascended from mortals to a Peak C-grade force in mere millennia suggested they once possessed rare, high-potential bloodlines. Mere access to a fragment of the Lost Plane could not explain such a frenetic climb.

Zac recognized that his personal benefit from Ultom’s enlightenment relied on his own existing foundation. He had crafted his path by dissecting high-tier manuals and studies like the [Book of Cycles]. Conversely, the Ra’Lashar Kingdom operated in isolation, forced to innovate from nothing while battling the madness of the Lost Plane.

It was this quintessential Ra’Lashar cunning that Zac feared witnessing in Ogras’s eyes upon waking. Sensing his intent, Tavza sealed the Teleportation Array with her Abyss. On such a confined platform, not even Ogras could evade capture.

The gargantuan Tool Spirit did not linger. It appeared to fall into a slumber before receding into the banner like the other prisoners. The banner shrank and furled, returning to its regular proportions. Instead of slipping into his sleeve, however, it transformed into a monochromatic streak that tunneled into the demon’s glabella.

Ogras’s eyes darted before he stirred. He immediately perceived his two companions observing him with dour expressions, though he seemed unperturbed. He offered the slithering vines of Haro a lazy glance before sauntering toward them.

“Not bad, eh?” he remarked with a mocking smirk. “I must admit, being on the receiving end for once is rather satisfying.”

His levity was met with silence. In reality, Zac was engaging in rapid mental correspondence with Tavza and Ogras simultaneously. Tavza confirmed her scans showed no discrepancies; Ogras differed greatly from the chimeric Tool Spirit. His soul remained intact without a trace of K’Rav. He was neither possessed nor merged.

Ogras passed every diagnostic Zac devised, including those planned while the [Shadewar Flag] was sealed. While it remained premature to fully relent, his friend appeared fundamentally unharmed. At least for the moment.

“What happened inside?” Zac inquired.

“Just a bit of housecleaning,” Ogras replied with annoyance that failed to mask the significance of the message.

Zac sighed, exasperated. “And the duality in your head?”

Zac had long been aware of the fissures in Ogras’s mind, which originated during his incarceration with Billy in the Void Star. They still lacked a complete understanding of its genesis, though Ogras suspected a freak accident fusing a unique relic with a Heart Demon.

The situation possessed advantages; his two sides had reached a tenuous concord. The entity acted as a secondary subconscious, parsing complexities within his path and mediating between Ogras and the spirits ensnared by his [Spiritlock Technique].

Nonetheless, it remained a distinct consciousness harboring within him, one capable of assuming control. It was hardly surprising that Ogras harbored a secret desire to purge this threat. The same applied to K’Rav; their saga was a long thread of mutual subversion.

“Is the K’Rav persona truly gone?” Zac queried.

Ogras let out a long breath. “I’ve consumed its core, but the imprint remains etched into the flag. It’s... complicated.”

Ogras detailed the process, leaving Zac unsure of how to react. If anything, the situation now seemed even more chaotic. Ogras laughed at Zac’s bewildered expression.

“You actually combined them?” Zac exclaimed, stunned.

“The lines between life and death are thinner than you think, my friend,” Ogras grinned.

“Just tell me there aren’t any more such surprises,” Zac said, fervently hoping for a reprieve.

Zac felt immense relief that no realmgate led back to Avīci; it spared him from investigating the unresolved threads of fate lingering there. Surviving was blessing enough. There were better methods to compensate for whatever contributions he might lack.

“Are you two done with your clandestine conference?” Tavza interrupted. “Is he trustworthy?”

“About as much as you considered him before,” Zac shrugged helplessly.

“Always the charmer,” Ogras winked at Tavza. “Regardless, it’s fortunate that skeleton saw fit to perish early. I doubt any of Kator’s lackeys would have descended this far without his assistance.”

Zac concurred, nodding. “Many of these realms were no laughing matter. Even I would have struggled to reach this point solo.”

“Our trouble was largely self-inflicted because of our persistence,” Tavza observed, gazing up at the terraces. From this vantage point, the graves appeared as a ladder of corpses reaching toward the heavens. “The boundaries are thinning as the subrealms reintegrate into the Left Imperial Expanse. Those who follow behind us can likely bypass these realms by descending the walls. They need only wait a few months and prepare to endure the agony.”

“Longanimity,” Zac murmured with a wry smile. “Perhaps that’s what those surface priests meant. We could have avoided this toil by simply waiting until the path was clear.”

“If you had, you would be someone else entirely,” Tavza countered. “Besides, I doubt the final two layers will ever dissolve. Resolving those knots is beyond any mortal; they are the final assessment of one's fate and conviction.”

Zac knew.