Chapter 281: Life Versus Death
A wave of relief flooded Zac as he sensed that the Duplicity Core once again woke up and finally started to absorb the sinister energies that were coursing through his body. In just a second it had absorbed it all, but Zacs body was still left in a state of disrepair.
Between the two attacks his body felt beyond feeble, and he knew that he was running out of ti. His core might have stabilized, but there was no way he would be able to absorb another set of those terrifying Dao-empowered strikes. Neither his body nor his core would be able to handle it.
He couldnt worry about whether there were any hidden components to this trial any longer, and he imdiately started to charge up [Natures Punishnt] the mont that his core stabilized. It would take a few seconds, and the construct seed to notice that sothing was up.
Extrely strong energies ripped through its body as it flashed forward with more than twice the speed compared to before, its black tentacle already hurtling toward him. Zac knew he had to stall for a bit longer, so he shot a fractal imbued with the Dao of Hardness at the tentacle as he backed away.
However, the fractal imdiately withered and broke apart even though it was imbued to be more resilient and the attack kept moving toward him. When Zac saw what happened to the fractal he suddenly had an idea, and he imbued the next [Chop] with the Dao of Trees. The edge flew toward the arm of death, and as he hoped it didnt imdiately break.
The two attacks clashed, neither gaining ground for a whole second. But soon enough the Dao of Death seed to finally whittle down the Dao of trees, and the edge crumbled just like Zacs earlier attacks. The difference in efficacy between the two last attacks gave Zac a clue into the proper way to deal with this trial, but he also realized it wouldnt work for him.
Luckily the clash had bought enough ti and the familiar wooden hand erged out of a crack in space above him. It rippled with the Dao of Trees since Zac believed he would hopefully be able to restrain the death-attuned side of the construct that way. Besides, apart from slightly restraining the Dao of Death it also gave an all-round boost to the attack.
Zac wasted no ti as he pushed the hand to slam straight down at the construct, and even though it erected a golden shield it still was slapped like a fly down into the ground. The attack didn't end there, as even though Zac's hand was burning from the golden shield he still forced it to continue its trajectory and slamd down into the downed construct with trendous force.
The next mont the huge hand gripped the construct, though it barely managed to fit the whole thing in its hand. Zac used all his might to try to crush the golem in his hand, but the Life-Death Construct wasn't going down without a fight. Radiant flashes of both gold and black lit up the whole area, and the transmitted damage from the hand was almost enough for Zac to pass out.
The wooden hand was extrely resilient with the help of the Dao of Trees and its power was unparalleled to anything else he could throw at his enemies. However, both the Daos that the Construct possessed were extrely corrosive to the wooden hand. It was like a feedback loop was caused inside the hand where it was continuously pushed between life and death.
The pain was unbelievable, and Zac's eyes were completely bloodshot by this point, but he kept pressuring the construct with all his might. Creaking sounds of tal being torn and twisted could be heard until a wide shockwave containing concentrated Death erupted from the golem.
Luckily most of the attack was blocked and absorbed by the hand, but the sudden burst of death was too much and Zac was forced to release the attack. The hand was already disintegrating from the frantic retaliation of the construct and the speed of its dissolution rapidly sped up when Zac decided to relinquish control.
His final action before he let the hand go was to throw the distorted tal into the ground once more, causing another shockwave to spread. He hoped that the construct was already destroyed from how dismal it looked, but he wouldnt bet his life on it.
As he looked at the unmoving scrap of tal in the crater he saw that its composition had undergone one more change from Zacs massive assault. The pitch-black tal had turned ashen grey, and it looked completely devoid of energy. He had completely destroyed the death-attuned half with the combination of brute force and the Dao of Trees.
However, he still couldnt breathe easily. While the other half of the construct was twisted and deford, it still shone with the sa golden luster as before. Worse yet he could sense the Dao of Life inside it. Zac sighed in disappointnt, but he readied himself for one more round.
Another hand was already erging from a crack above him, even though such a rapid consumption of energy was pretty harmful to his body. This hand was imbued with the Dao of Heaviness though since it felt useless to fight against the Life-attuned half of the construct with a worse version of its own elent.
The construct was slowly rising from the crater as it smoothed out its deford shape. But luckily the grey area was still completely lifeless and showed no signs of regenerating. Zac felt empowered by the sight and roused the remaining energy in his body as he pushed the second hand straight at his enemy.
The wooden hand slamd into the construct like a falling teor, the attack causing a far larger shockwave compared to the first punishnt. The whole field that held the inheritance trail was cracking, making Zac wonder if the trial area would break apart from the battle.
Zac hesitantly looked at the crater to see whether his attack was effective, but so panic erupted when he sensed the familiar deluge of vitality flooding the wooden hand. The next mont an almost blinding golden glow erupted from beneath the hand, almost completely swallowing it.
Zac quickly canceled the attack as he wracked his brain for so way out. Would he have to take the Cowards Escape after all? But Zac grit his teeth in stubbornness again, feeling the sa unwillingness to back down as he felt in his battle with the Dominator. His eyes followed the movent of the construct as it once again picked itself up from the ground.
He had a feeling that no matter how many attacks he launched at the thing it would keep regenerating, as long as he didnt use a proper elent for an attack. He needed to use death to vanquish life.
The construct was quickly returning to its original form as Zacs mind moved a mile a minute trying to figure out a way to destroy that thing. Finally, he took out an E-Grade Miasma Crystal and launched it straight at the construct like he had done so many tis with rocks to kill beasts.
The crystal ripped through the air like a bullet and slamd straight into the golden arm with enough power to push it back a few ters. The crystal itself exploded into thousands of splinters, but unfortunately, it didnt result in an explosion of death-attuned energy. Instead, the miasma stored in the crystal simply spread out like a cloud which didnt seem to particularly affect the construct.
Zac sighed in disappointnt, but seeing the cloud of miasma actually gave him an idea. He barely had ti to formulate it as another ball of light started to shine inside the golden circle on his enemys eye. This was no ti to second-guess himself since if that ball hit him like the last one he would likely die. He desperately moved his arm to his pouch, and the next mont an enormous monolith appeared in front of him.
It reached around ten ters into the air and was wrought from so cursed black stone. Zac had never been so close to an Unholy Beacon before, and he started to feel nauseated by the aura it emitted almost imdiately. At the top of the monolith a turquoise light radiated outward, and it had imdiately started to convert the Cosmic Energy in the atmosphere.
Without waiting Zac grabbed the base of the monolith. But to his dismay he realized that he barely managed to lift the thing, and worse yet he noticed that the attack by the construct was almost fully ford. Out of better options he activated [Hatchetmans Rage], and with a roar properly lifted the Unholy Beacon as he started running with heavy steps toward the construct.
He didn't want to use this skill at first, afraid that there would other trials would await after this one. Undergoing another battle while weakened by the side-effects of [Hatchetman's Rage] might prove lethal, so he wanted to avoid using it against the construct. But it was Hail Mary-ti.
Zac's muscles burned with strain, but the unnatural power and rage brought by the skill pushed him forward. An all-consuming desire for wanton destruction filled Zacs mind, and this ti he didnt try to curtail it. With a bestial roar he finally jumped up in the air, causing huge cracks to spread from where he stood.
The construct lifted its arm toward Zac, but he didnt care as he heedlessly swung the enormous monolith as though it was a club. A golden ball of life flew straight at him, but it was swallowed into the turquoise haze at the top of the pillar. Putting a ball of pure life into the conversion chamber of an Unholy Beacon was clearly a pretty bad idea since extrely erratic energies imdiately started to radiate from the monolith.
Zac sensed that the Unholy Beacon was highly unstable even in his muddled state, but he didnt care as he slamd the tip straight into the head of the Life-Death construct in a thwonk that would make Billy proud. Life and death clashed in a blinding explosion, and Zac was thrown away like a ragdoll from the shockwave. Luckily he activated [Natures Barrier] at the last second, protecting him from so of the damage at least.
As he was falling he at felt a huge surge of Cosmic Energy entering his body, pushing him to level 74. He breathed in relief since that ant the construct was truly destroyed and the gambit had worked out.
He rembered that both Ogras and Karunthel had told him that it was possible to turn the Unholy Beacons into weapons, which made him try to use it against the large life-attuned golem. They might not have ant such a direct thod of utilization, but at least it worked out in the end.
Zac knew that there must be so strong death-attuned item inside the monoliths to be able to continuously turn Cosmic Energy into miasma, and his gambit was that it would cause proper damage in contrast to the Miasma Crystal.
A groan escaped his mouth as Zac slamd into the ground, every part of his body aching. But without giving himself a breather he got back on his feet and quickly ate a top tier healing pill as he scanned the surroundings for any change.
He wasn't necessarily safe just because he had destroyed the construct.
He quickly spotted that one thing had changed after he had destroyed the construct. The field the battle had taken place in was surrounded by a gray haze since he arrived, but in one direction the shroud had given way to a path that led away from this place. However, Zac ignored the path for now as he walked over to the crater with the broken monolith.
The clash between life and death had quickly snuffed out each other, but not before it had utterly destroyed the area. Zac looked into the pit and sighed in disappointnt when he looked at the mangled remains of the Life-Death construct. The pattern on its chest had been a great clue to the path he wanted to walk, but it was demolished from his attacks.
In the end he put both the broken Beacon and the crumpled remains of the construct into his Cosmos Sack, but instead of heading over to the exit he instead sat down and started to absorb energy from an E-Grade Nexus Crystal. A few seconds later a huge wave of weakness hit him as the effect from [Hatchetmans Rage] ran out.
He realized that one more positive effect of either his improved Vitality or Endurance was that the side-effect of the berserker skill had beco far more manageable compared to before, though he still wouldnt want to start another fight in his current condition.
But he wasnt completely out of it like before, so instead of heading to the next stage he instead took out one of his Dao Treasures as soon as he felt his state was sowhat stable. Ti was of the essence while the pattern and the Constructs attacks were fresh in his mind, and without hesitation swallowed it and closed his eyes.
He knew the next step he needed to take on his Dao Path.
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