Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 204: To Forgive

“She came to me a few days ago, wanting to speak with you. She looked pale and haggard,” Kenzie said with worry on her face. “I tried to ask what had happened, but she wouldn’t say. She only said she really needed to speak with you.”

Zac frowned, an unsettling feeling emerging in his chest. Was someone making things difficult for Hannah because she was his ex?

“I went by her house yesterday,” she continued “It looked some had harassed her. The door was broken.”

”Did you talk to her again?” Zac said with some agitation.

”No, I couldnʼt find her since then. But I told Ogras to have people patrol her neighborhood,” Kenzie said.

”Iʼll fix the situation,” Zac said, leaving without another word.

Anger was burning in his chest as he moved toward Hannah’s house in the residential district. He couldn’t help but believe that someone was harassing her due to her complicated relationship with himself.

It wouldn’t be impossible that it was someone doing things to Hannah in a misguided attempt to suck up to him, or perhaps it was someone who simply delighted in kicking people when they were down. But whatever the case was it had thoroughly enraged Zac.

Even if the feelings of affection had cooled over the past months, Hannah was still someone who held a place in his heart. She was someone who knew Zac, rather than the Super Brother-Man. Whoever was behind this would regret inserting themselves into his matters.

He soon arrived outside Hannah’s house once again, and it was just like Kenzie had said. The white door from earlier was actually cracked open, now resting against the wall. A new door had been installed, though it clearly was a makeshift solution as it didn’t properly fit in the doorframe.

That wasn’t all. Multiple windows were broken, and it looked like someone had thrown mud at the villa. Zac stood completely frozen for a few seconds, unbelieving at what he was seeing. Suddenly he saw a slight movement in one of the windows, telling him that Hannah was home. This time he didn’t knock, instead immediately entering in haste.

Luckily it was clear that no one dared to actually enter the home of Hannah, leaving the interior intact. A sound was heard and Zac could see a haggard-looking Hannah step out of a doorway holding a pillow in front of her.

“Are you okay? What’s going on?” Zac said with concern.

Hannah didn’t say a word and only started sobbing. Zac moved over to her by instinct and placed his arms around her. Suddenly a slight prick of pain erupted in his stomach, and he moved away with some confusion.

To his shock, Zac saw that a dagger was firmly embedded in his gut. He couldn’t understand how he could be attacked like this without any alarm bells going off, or more importantly that Hannah would attack him. Zac furiously looked up at his ex, but before he had time to do anything a boundless cold erupted from the weapon.

“You…” was all Zac could say as darkness took him.

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A storm of emotions rushed through Hannah’s head as she looked down at the unmoving corpse of her former boyfriend. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, to the point that her hands couldn’t stop shaking.

She’d truly done it, she had managed to kill the strongest man in the world. She knew that meant she had gained the Lordship title, and that she was in control of both the huge wealth of the town and the Dao Repository. The path to becoming a true elite of the world was opened.

She thought she would be elated, but as she looked down on Zac she only felt empty, disgusted even. She had seen true anger on Zac’s face when he had stopped to see the damage she and David had orchestrated to make him run here in a hurry. An unsettling feeling was starting to rise in her chest, the scene of Zac arriving playing over and over in her mind.

“I wasn’t sure you’d go through with it,” David said as he stepped out from his hiding spot behind a false wall, panting and pale.

When he saw her conspirator Hannahʼs chaotic thoughts quickly stilled, and she turned over to him with a frown.

“I can’t rely on others to become stronger. It doesn’t matter if he slept with that bitch or not. I still have my goals, and he was in the way of them. And what’s with you?” Hannah asked, calming her raging emotions.

“Do you think it’s easy to mask the killing intent from his senses?” David huffed. “More importantly, is he dead?”

Hannah’s eyes suddenly widened in a horrifying realization.

“I haven’t received any energy! He’s still alive!” Hannah frantically said as she looked down on the knife that blazed in golden luster.

The knife she got from David was called a [Purifying Dagger] for some reason, and it stole all the living energies out of a body to a certain extent. The knife would have no effect on a Zombie, but to a human it essentially was a death sentence.

It was the very dagger she received from David when they started hatching this scheme. He had apparently gotten it in the tutorial for completing a difficult quest and kept it secret until this day. Its weakness was that it could only be used once, becoming scrap metal afterward. David had multiple times exhorted her to make the stab count for that very reason.

Unfortunately, it seemed out that there was a limit on how much vitality it could absorb. But even with the enormous power of someone like Zac, it should at least have absorbed a large chunk of his life force since Zac was truly looking like a pale corpse at the moment.

As she looked down on Zac who blankly stared up on the roof, she knew he wasn’t long for this world even if they left him alone. It had probably passed a threshold where the lack of vitality would cause a chain reaction where one organ after another shut down.

However, David frowned and immediately rushed toward Zac, not wanting to take any chances. But before he had time to decapitate his former friend a shield of shadows appeared over the lifeless body of Zac.

In the next instant a spear penetrated David’s gut, lifting him up in the air. He screamed in pain but he was unable to extricate himself. He helplessly hanged in the air, blood freely raining down on the floor.

“Now look what you have done,” a desolate voice said with a sigh as the demon leader stepped out of the shadows holding a spear. “You might just have doomed your planet. For what? Revenge for him dumping you?”

“For power. I got a quest that gave me lordship if I managed to kill Zac. We did it, giving me complete control. I know you want [The Umbra] Inheritance. Help me solidify my position and it’s yours. Anything else you need that Port Atwood has, you will be given,” Hannah quickly said.

This wasn’t what they had planned. The idea was to solidify their position and take control of the Arrays covering the town before anyone even found out Zac was dead, and from there negotiate from a place of power. That Ogras had somehow found out about them was highly unnerving, and it felt as though things were getting out of control.

“What would it matter in the big picture if two pieces of trash like you got your hands on the inheritances? You would just squander the gifts anyway, and then get killed by the invaders,” Ogras said with a sneer as he threw the wailing David into a wall.

“Besides, you seem to be under a misconception. You think you’re qualified to negotiate with me?” The demon continued, looking down at the unmoving body of Zac. “You’ve ruined so much for me, and you think I will let you live in peace? Your newfound lordship title won’t help you. The Ruthless Heavens respects power, and you don’t have it.”

The next moment the demon stood in front of Hannah, and before she had time to react he clutched her throat and lifted her up in the air.

“Don’t worry. I will not kill you. Since I can’t be the lord, someone else will have to bear that burden. And you will just have to pray that we survive the coming years. Because you can trust me in this regard; if this planet falls and becomes my tomb, no one shall suffer more than the two of you until I meet my demise,” the demon growled.

“Let me handle it,” an abyssal voice suddenly said, making Ogras quickly turn around.

It was Zac, who was slowly getting to his feet, a black ichor trickling down his mouth. At first Ogras seemed relieved, but when he noticed the face of his friend his pupils shrunk to a needle-point, and he couldn’t help but take a step back.

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Rage and betrayal were coursing through Zac’s mind as he slowly got to his feet. He knew that he might have been dead for a bit, but somehow he’d heard everything that was said. He couldn’t believe that his two former friends would conspire to kill him.

He also had to admit that he was shocked that they actually succeeded. He hadn’t thought many on Earth could harm him anymore, let alone kill him. But that horrible knife that Hannah used sapped all the life in his body.

He still couldn’t completely understand how he still was alive, as he clearly felt himself dying after he fell down on the floor. But soon after the core in his body went haywire, spewing out a torrent of miasma that still filled every corner of his body.

Perhaps the death-attuned energy had staved off true death, but Zac knew it would be a pain to get his body under control again. He remembered what an undertaking it was to cleanse his wound earlier.

The miasma also caused some odd reactions in his body, as his sense of sight and smell was all messed up. He could still see the others just fine, but it was as though as there was another filter superimposed upon his normal sight.

It took him a brief moment to understand what it was. It was life. The miasma somehow caused him to see pure life that made the others shine in an enticing light. Initially, he thought it was heat he saw, but after turning his head he saw that wasn’t the case. He could see the same effect on the trees through the window, and the flowers planted in the window sill.

It was a magical sight, and Zac wondered if this was how the undead saw the world. The same nactually went for his sense of smell, as he could actually smell the life coming from Hannah and Ogras. It was a sweet and refreshing scent, like a subdued perfume.

The effect also felt reminiscent of the energies from the skills that the purifiers used, though what he saw was more subdued and natural. He turned his head to the wounded David at the side and saw that small motes of life were leaving him from his wound. He was slowly bleeding out, his life leaving with him.

But more importantly, that wasnʼt the only different thing about him.

He didn’t understand why everything was so different at the moment, and could only attribute it to the deathly part of his core. Still, all these questions would have to wait for later, as he needed to deal with the situation.

“Just because of a misunderstanding you tried to kill me?” Zac said with a sigh as he walked toward his former lover whose horror was evident in her eyes. “Or was it greed?”

He blankly looked at Hannah for a few more seconds, the silence only broken by the wheezings of David. Zac once again turned his eyes the man who was still huddled in the corner.

“I wondered why you didn’t seek me out. I have been back for some time, after all. If you wanted to get stronger you could have just asked, and I would have helped you. But it turned out David was already dead,” Zac said with a sad sigh.

“What are you talking about?” David spat out between grit teeth. “You shouldn’t be alive.”

Hannah looked quite confused as well, not understanding the exchange. Ogras’ brows rose however as he looked over at the wounded man in concern. Zac only evenly stared at the person in front of him. When David saw the faces of Zac and ogras his frantic face suddenly turned completely calm.

“You didn’t die, but you have fallen. Purity will come for you,” David said, closing his eyes.

The next moment Cosmic Energy Gathered around David, his body starting to glow with a golden sheen.

But it didn’t get further than that as tens of shadow blades chopped his body into mincemeat in the blink of an eye, effectively stopping the self-destruction.

Zac coldly looked the lifeless body seeing the motes of light quickly disappearing somewhere. To his surprise, a few of the motes entered his body, and he sensed the life energy entering the golden part of his core.

“God damn cultists,” Ogras only spat. ”This was a tricky one. I didnʼt actually kill him I think, I received no Cosmic Energy.”

”The weapon should have come from him,” Zac said with a frown, looking down at the shining knife. ”Weʼll find him.”

The reason he was so confident was his newfound sight. As long as he didnʼt lose it he wouldnʼt need any Springroot any longer. It was clear as day to him that David was a shapeshifter, as a ball of golden fire emanated vitality from within his heart.

“He must have been one of the true elites that came through the Incursion. Are you ok?” the demon hesitantly asked, bringing Zac out of his musings.

“I will survive,” Zac said with a shrug, turning to Hannah.

“Please, I- David tricked me,” Hannah frantically said.

“I forgive you,” Zac said after a while, causing Hannahsʼs eyes to widen in surprise and hope. “You were manipulated by a foreign invader.”

“Yes! It was David, no that thing, that kept telling me to kill you!” Hannah agreed, her head bobbing up and down.

“But to forgive is not to condone the actions of others,” Zac muttered, mostly to himself, as he turned to Ogras. “Throw her in a dungeon for now, until I decide what to do with her. If we don’t have one, build it.”

“Sure. Are you truly okay?” Ogras asked, knocking Hannah out cold.

Zac looked down on his former lover, whose face was in the middle of a transformation from hope to despair when she lost consciousness.

“I am fine. Why do you keep asking me that?” Zac asked with a frown as he looked back up at the demon.

“Well, for one I know it kind of messes with your head to be betrayed by those close to you. I should know, my personal maid tried to murder me when I was 8,” the demon said with a shrug.

“But I mostly ask because you’ve turned into a god damn Zombie.”