Defiance of the Fall

mmandment is the Commandment of Conquest,” she said.

“Conquest?” Zac repeated.

“All the Kingdoms of the Empire have a quota to expand, and no one is allowed to hinder a crusade.
I could take over the Incursion if I could somehow make my way to your planet, but I would still be bound by law to conquer the planet,” she said.

“Why?” Zac said with incredulity.

“Do you know the history of our people?” Catheya asked.

“I just know the Undead Empire is older than the System,” Zac shrugged.

“Well, the undead races are older, but the Undead Empire is not,” she said.
“Do you know about the Darkness?”

“What? The Darkness?” Zac said, the rapid change of topics throwing him off-balance.

’

“When the System was born, the universe was drained of its energy to feed its usurpation of the heavens.
The path of cultivation was cut off,” she said.

Zac nodded in understanding.
Alyn had told him about this while she explaining the origin of the System.

“For most races it was a great inconvenience, but for the Undead Races it was a calamity.
Our existence is dependent on death-attuned energies, and when the universe was being drained so was our lifeline,” Catheya said.

Zac’s eyes immediately widened in understanding.
This was something he hadn’t considered.
If all Cosmic Energy was suddenly gone, then Zac would live as he did before the Integration.
But his Draugr-side would be screwed.

Even just sitting around would slowly expend miasma, though nowhere near the amounts that were expended during battle.
But he would no doubt die within the year if he didn’t have any Miasma Crystals to top himself off.

But Zac remembered that the Darkness as Catheya called it had lasted over a million years.
How did the undead races survive for so long? He could only imagine that more powerful warriors required a lot of Miasma to just survive.

“The Founders and the Undead Princes searched the whole universe for pockets of energies that could sustain us, but over 95% of our population succumbed before we found the Heartlands.
Since then there’s been a standing order to realign the universe, because if the whole Multiverse is death-attuned we’ll never be without a lifeline again.
So we will never stop expanding.”

“That’s… Crazy,” Zac sighed.

“Well,” Catheya said with a smile.
“Only the fanatics take the mission seriously nowadays.
But conflict is still the cornerstone of progress, and The Ruthless Heavens is very much in favor of the way we’re doing things as it causes conflict everywhere.
That by itself provides us with some special benefits.
Besides, we cannot disobey the commandments since they are coded into our bloodlines by the Primo.”

“The Primo?” Zac asked.

“I cannot discuss the Primo,” Catheya said with a shake of her head.

Zac sighed with a nod.
He could only guess that the Primo was either the founder of the Undead Empire or the current Emperor.
It didn’t really matter though.
What mattered was the fact that there was no way for the Draugr in front of him to settle the Incursion.

However, the Undead Incursions was just the first of the many threats that Earth was facing, and he was pretty confident in dealing with it on his own after all his recent gains.

“What about the thing I mentioned out in the square? You said you’re not from this sector, so you wouldn’t care about offending these guys, right?” Zac probed.

“I’m not sure how I would be able to help with this matter? He sounds like someone on his last legs.
I doubt he would care for a second that your planet was under the protection of some powerhouse unless the powerhouse was actually standing guard over the planet,” Catheya slowly said.
“I also don’t carry anything that can kill someone that strong with any guarantee, since items of that grade can’t be taken to this place.”

“Can’t your clan do something?” Zac askes with some helplessness.

“My master probably wouldn’t mind killing that guy if I asked him.
He has no love for the unorthodox cultivators.
But we have no means to find him.
He could be anywhere in this sector, and him being versed in the Dao of Karma which makes him twice as slippery.
Do you have a token to summon my master if needed?”

“A-“ Zac stammered, realizing that there were glaring issues in his plan of getting a patron.

’

“I am willing to join a force as long as they can provide protection of Earth,” Zac said.

“Well, that might work, though not with me.
Undead Kingdoms and forces cannot form alliances with the living, with you being targets of conquest and all.
We could strike an unofficial partnership though,” the Draugr smiled.
“But there are a lot of problems with this plan.”

“Problems how?” Zac asked.

“Is my ancestor alive?” Catheya smiled, but the effect was extremely creepy if you combined it with her dead eyes.

Zac sighed and mulled it over for a second.

“She was alive three months ago to the best of my knowledge.
Or well, alive by undead standards I guess?” Zac said.
“What problems?”

“She’s really alive?!” Catheya exclaimed, even standing up in excitement.

Zac was pretty sure by this point that the Draugr-lady in his vision was an ancestor to the one in front of him, one that seemed to have gone missing.
Had she perhaps left her clan behind due to issues stemming from the Splinter of Oblivion? She was clearly extremely powerful, and if she went mad it wouldn’t be just a small Pill House going up in smokes.

She might blow up a whole planet.

It was a great bargaining tool for Zac though.
She clearly was anxious to learn about her ancestor, and she seemed to come from an extremely powerful faction of one of the oldest forces in the Multiverse.
She was probably the most knowledgeable person he had met, perhaps with the exception of some of the scions he had met during the fight on the 7th floor.

It was time to get his money’s worth.

“The problems?” Zac reminded.

“Well, you can technically join a faction, either as an ally or a subordinate.
But that doesn’t mean that you can get the help you need,” Catheya said after having composed herself.
“First of all, travel will not be possible as your world probably hasn’t met the requirements to connect with the multiverse.
You can’t even teleport to local factions, how are you going to teleport to other factions of the sector?”

“So there’s no hope?” Zac said with some bleakness.

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“Well, most people here have tokens to give out.
You could technically form an agreement now, and then use the token to fetch a powerhouse to assist you.
The one going would need to be a Planetary Leader though, since others wouldn ’t be able to bring anyone back while the planet is closed-off, ” Catheya said.

”How do you know this? ” Zac asked.
”Seems like a pretty specific rule. ”

”I ’ve led an incursion myself, ” Catheya explained as it was a matter of course.
”That ’s how I met Varo over there.
I guess you could say he was that planet ’s version of you.
Anyway, the rules are pretty much the same for an invader, so I read up on how things worked.
It ’s a bit more convenient for the invader though, as the world immediately gets integrated after the conquest is done with.
But you will still be cut-off for a hundred years even if you win. ”

Zac ’s eyes turned toward the silent Revenant, and he couldn ’t help but shudder.
Would this have been the fate of himself and Kenzie if he hadn ’t managed to accumulate enough power? The Revenant seemed to feel the gaze, and he opened his eyes and looked over at Zac.

”That was him, I am me.
We ’re nothing but strangers fated to never meet, ” Varo said before he once again closed his eyes.