Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 399: The Peaks

Who would have thought that it was actually Rasuliel Tsarun who coughed up a shocking 78 billion Nexus Coins to buy this thing? Zac had already learned that while the Eye was a precious item, it wasn’t worth nowhere such an obscene amount. Galau had explained that it would go for at most 20 billion Nexus Coins in the outside world.

There were many ways to upgrade one's specialty core, such as the pills Zethaya Pill House provided. Those pills cost less than a billion Nexus Coins, a far cry from the shocking amount the Eye ended up at. Most proper heritages with instructions on forming Specialty Cores also came with methods to evolving them, making Zac suspect that Rasuliel wanted the Eye for some other purpose than himself.

Did Rasuliel perhaps have some urgent need for the Eye, prompting him to pay through his nose? That might have been why he visited the Zethaya Clan as well. He might have been looking for help in turning the Eye into some specific pill with the help of Boja or some of his elders back home.

Of course, Rasuliel's reasons for overpaying for the item no longer mattered.

Getting his hands on the Eye meant that he had essentially acquired everything on his list before arriving at the Tower of Eternity. Now he only needed to get out in one piece, and he would have all the tools he needed to burst out with a huge amount of power after returning to Earth.

He finally retracted his mind from the Spatial Ring and refocused on recuperating. The [Serene Flesh Pill] did wonders to his body, but then it still took a few hours before he felt well enough to even walk any distance. His wound was still an open mess though, and one could see his body slowly growing new cells to restore the hole in his side.

Zac guessed that it would take a few days for his wounds to close completely, and a few days more for him to regain his full strength. It was an extremely long convalescence for someone like Zac with a huge pool of Endurance and Vitality, but it would have been even longer if it wasn't for the pill.

There was an unmistakable aura of a strong Dao in his wound that slowed down his efforts to heal up, but he wasn't as helpless as when Mhal infected him with the Draugr samples. He was slowly grinding down the foreign Dao with his fragments, and it wouldn't be long before all of it was expended.

His Spirit Tool Robes also had mended themselves by this point, which at least blocked the grisly sight of his wound. He got up to his feet with a grunt and returned to the campsite, only to find Ogras leisurely sipping wine from one of the dozens of vats he had bought during the past week. Galau still sat and stared despondently into the great beyond, and didn't even give Zac a glance when he returned.

“He’s still out of it?” Zac asked with confusion.

“Sheltered brat, all despondent after a little bit of mayhem,” Ogras snorted with some derision before he turned to Zac. “Now, can you explain what the hell happened? The plan was for you to buy some healing pills. How did that turn into you tearing down the Pill House of an ancient clan and ripping the head off this poor bastard?”

Even if the demon appeared unbothered on the surface it was obvious he was a bit frazzled by the events as well. He looked back and forth between the headless body of Rasuliel and Zac, clearly trying to get a grip on the situation.

Zac sighed as he recounted the whole encounter from the moment he entered, adding on his own speculation about Rasuliel being from one of the ousted families of Earth. He didn’t hide the fact that they came from a newly integrated planet since he felt Galau deserved to understand the situation after having been dragged into this level of trouble.

“What' you're progenitors? But what about…. Wait, he’s from the Tsarun Clan?” Galau cried when he heard about the identity of the corpse. “Oh, Mommy.”

“You know about them?” Zac asked curiously and a bit accusatory. “I still don’t know why he targeted me, do you have some sort of feud with them?”

“Ahem…” Ogras coughed. “It’s the Tsarun, remember? Calrin’s old friends?”

Only then did Zac remember why the name was so familiar. It was the old Clan that had worked on stealing Calrin’s Mercantile License for centuries. If that man knew who Zac was, then it would explain his hostility. Who knew how much time and effort clan had spent only for Zac to foil their plans inadvertently.

“I wonder how that Tsarun guy could know that I was the one who helped Calrin though,” Zac muttered. “It looked like he knew right away.”

“Who’s Calrin?” Galau finally asked.

“A merchant targeted by the Tsarun clan fled to my planet, I gave them a place to stay in exchange for a part of his business,” Zac shrugged.

“So you had already made that clan your enemy even before you came here?” Galau blankly asked, looking ready to barf. "Those guys are extremely overbearing. Their patriarch is dead-set on elevating their clan to a peak force, and they don't shy away from any means. They're almost bordering on turning into an unorthodox force, but they stay just within the limits to not get targeted."

“Yes, I didn’t expect them to be here, or that they’d find out about me,” Zac shrugged. “Do you know how that’s possible?”

Galau’s distraught eyes focused for a second, but a frown slowly crept onto his face.

“I don’t know either. The world is full of mysterious skills and arrays though. Do you wear anything bought through that store they were targeting?” he asked.

Zac considered for a few seconds before his eyes turned to the defensive ring given to him by Calrin. Ogras’ eyes lit up as well as he looked down at his hand.

“I’ll punt that little blue bastard over to the next island next time I see him. Did he do it on purpose to make us complicit?” the demon muttered with annoyance before he wryly smiled at Zac. “I think our plan of feigning ignorance and handing over Calrin in case we meet the Tsarun elders is ruined now.”

Zac could only snort in response. Ruined felt like an understatement after killing one of the young masters of the clan.

“The real issue is how you’ll deal with this. Remember, we’ll only be inside here for a day. By that point those guys might have amassed a small army outside to welcome our return,” the demon added.

“Well, can’t we just zap out the moment we leave the tower?” Zac asked. “It’s a shame to leave so early, but there’s no option. The 60-second limiter should have passed by now, right? Or maybe we can even leave right here?”

“We can’t leave the Tower straight to our homeworld,” Ogras said with a shake of his head. “You can only use the token to leave the Tower, then you can use it again to leave this dimension. And I don’t know how it works for us. This situation is outside my general knowledge.”

“Maybe if we climb high enough they’ll back off?” Zac ventured. “Or at least hesitate long enough for us to teleport out?”

“Wait!” Galau suddenly exclaimed as he turned to Zac looking like a drowning man finding a glimmer of hope. “Pretty Peak is in the Base town! Can you ask her for help?”

“Pretty Peak? Who the hell is that?” Ogras said.

“The Peak family of the Allbright Empire!” Galau explained as he pointed at Zac. “He clearly has a connection to them, and they are both strong and overbearing enough to make the Tsarun Clan back down. Even the Zethaya might give them face if they know you are related.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zac said, and he wasn’t lying. "Who are the Peak family?"

“Your bracer,” Galau said. “It is no doubt made by someone from the Peak family. They utilize a unique crafting method that’s easily distinguishable if you know what to look for.”

“So that spiel about the fear in our eyes the other day was all dogshit? You simply recognized the bracer this guy wore and figured we were strong?” Ogras snorted.

“Well… I did not really lie. I simply didn’t explain all my reasons for employing you,” Galau coughed before his face once again was marred by despair. “But what good did my planning do? No one will believe the authenticity of my climb after having seen your rampage. You will no doubt reach the sixth floor, perhaps even conquering it.”

“Tell me what you know about the Peak family,” Zac said with interest, ignoring the complaints of Galau.

He had held back on mentioning Greatest and Average since he didn’t want to expose his connection to them, but it looked like it was for naught. Galau had known about it since the start, and had even used the connection as a measure of his strength.

“It’s a unique family in the Allbright Empire. It can’t really be called a clan since there are only a hundred members or so in the family. But all of them are crazy strong. The patriarch of the family is Ultimate, one of the four Marshalls of the Allbright Empire. He is a friend of the emperor himself,” Galau said.

“What about Pretty? Is she Ultimate’s daughter?” Zac asked.

“No, grand-daughter. Her father is Strongest, the eldest of the three sons of Ultimate. The other two are Greatest and Fiercest,” Galau said.

“What’s with these names?” Ogras snorted.

Zac kept asking a bit about the family without making it obvious who in the family he had a connection with. It turned out that the Peak family actually lived in the capital of the Allbright Empire, but most members were out battling. Greatest had headed to the Red Sector in order to find dangerous criminals to fight.

The Red Sector was apparently one of the more remote zones of the Allbright Empire, and bordering it was a large unclaimed sector with a huge number of spatial anomalies. It made both teleportation arrays impossible to construct while also making it extremely dangerous to travel with Cosmic Ships.

This had turned the sector to a mostly lawless no man's land where unorthodox forces, pirates, and other dangerous people hid. The Allbright Empire often launched assaults on the area, but it was an absolute rat’s nest that was almost impossible to completely cleanse.

Apart from the Allbright armies, the Red Zone was also rife with bounty hunters and mercenary squads hoping to make a killing inside the unclaimed territory. The numerous anomalies created a unique atmosphere that regularly gave birth to valuable treasures. Sometimes extremely valuable items were even spat out through a spatial tear, coming from god knows where.

It was in that chaotic space that Greatest sought to hone himself through bloodshed.

Zac suddenly remembered the conversation between Greatest and Average. He had mentioned asking the Red Emperor to allow Average to enter some Eternal Legion. Was the Eternal Legion one of the punitive armies that regularly tried to clean out the pirates and other scum in the lawless zone?

Zac's mouth turned upward slightly when he imagined that gaudy teenager being forced to fight ruthless pirates or crazy cultists while still at F or Early E-Grade. Even strong E-Grade warriors should be at risk there, as people who had the ability to traverse between planets should be very powerful.

He wasn't all too worried about his safety though. Greatest's family was a lot more impressive than he had imagined, and there was no doubt someone hiding in the shadows making sure that Average didn't actually kick the bucket.

But Zac knew that just because he had met those two during his Hegemony trial, there was no way that he could completely rely on them to clean up his mess.

“I truthfully have no connection with that family. I only got this bracer through a chance encounter,” Zac said. “I had never heard of Pretty Peak before today, so I doubt that she would extend a hand to help with our situation.”

Galau looked completely crestfallen, but Zac was internally delighted. Greatest was from a force far stronger than he had expected, with multiple C-Grade powerhouses in its ranks. Perhaps he could ask this Pretty for a way to save Earth from the Great Redeemer.